Christmas Cookies

I love Christmas time and Christmas food! I've been trying to do Christmas cookies for our neighbors, but John is super excited about it (not) so it hasn't happened yet. I do have it all planned though, I can't wait to sneak some! Here is what I got!

1. Frosted Pumpkin Cookies

2. Candy Cane Cookies

3. Russian Teacakes

4. Fudge (which we tested yesterday and is delicious)

Hopefully I'll post pictures when we make the cookies soon! Don't they look good? So what are some of your favorite Christmas treats?

Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree today! John got to take a half day today and since he loves the Christmas tree, that is what we did with his time off. Our tree isn't fancy by any means, but we love it! We listened to Christmas music and put up all the decorations. Carter mostly enjoyed the lights!

Gingerbread House

About two weeks ago I decided that it would be "fun" to make a gingerbread house from scratch to help use up some of our Halloween candy and that it would be something to do with my mom. None of us really like gingerbread, but no one eats the houses any ways. I made the dough and cooked it with my mom here, and John and I finished it a couple days after she left. The end result is a courtyard since we could barely get the sides to stay up (after about an hour of frustration), and it looks like a little kid did it, but I had some "fun" along the way!

Carter enjoyed watching us make it.

Here is Carter sleeping on the job!

Our attempt number 5 at getting it to stand up!

Look at the mess we made!!

Do you like it?

The finished product!

Life Changing

Everyone said that having a baby would be life changing, but you never really know what that means until it happens to you. Carter is almost a month old now and life has just flown by! Of course I could never blog everything that has happened the last month but here are some of the things we have learned, and some cute pictures.

#1 Don't take too long to change a diaper (bad things happen).

#2 Carter does not like baths at all

#3 Pull the giant red lever behind the carseat to get Carter out of the car. (Mom and I had to ask another mom in the parking lot to help us out :) )

#4 To get Carter to take a binky you have to calm him down first, silly kid.

#5 Sleeping more than 4 hours at a time has never sounded sooooooooooooo nice!

Baby Carter

So everyone has been asking for the story so I thought that since I'm finally feeling a little better today that I would just post a blog about it.

Tuesday October 23rd I went to work and was really struggling for the first time with pain. I thought it might be contractions but everyone said you would just know and I didn't feel like "I knew" yet so I didn't make anything of it. By the time I drove home they were every 6 minutes but when I went for my check up they scheduled a date to be induced so I thought I was going crazy.

By the time John got home they were just getting worse so I pretty much decided that this was it. My contractions were still 6 minutes apart at that point so we went out to Five Guys as my last super and a Halloween store to try and pass the time. At around 8:30 the contractions had been 3-5 minutes apart for 2 hours so we went in. Unfortunetly I didn't progress any at the hospital over a one hour time period so they kicked me out and I was not happy at all! They gave me some percocet and promised it would help so I left somewhat willingly. It didn't. So we ended up back at the hospital around 1:00am because I was in so much pain.

I was only 1 cm more than when I had left but at around 1:45am they decided to admit me because my pain was so bad and they were worried about fetal movement. I got the epideral as FAST as I could and then I was a happy camper. They decided to induce because of the fetal movement but after a couple hours they broke my water and I was doing fine on my own. John and I were both able to sleep some and then at 7:45am I started to push and after 45 min he just popped out!

Born at 8:33am October 24 2012

6 pounds 14 ounces 19 inches

Carter John Bainbridge

(Can you believe this amazing smile John has! Probably the only time I'll ever get a picture with him smiling like this.)

I pretty much loved the hospital for the nursery and the room service but hated all the nurses and other people coming in and bugging us.

(The cute name tag they made for us!)

(I look horrible but oh well, he is cute!)

We left Friday morning into the bitter cold and I made John drive super slow to make sure Carter was safe.

I didn't do so well the first couple days but now I feel a lot better. John has been simply amazing! He stayed with me one night in the hospital which I was very grateful and then when we got home he did dishes, laundry, cooking, and basically anything I wanted.

We love our little man!

Due Date Oct 23

Waiting for a baby is like nothing else I've experienced. It is scary, exciting, and nerve racking! A new person is going to be part of our family and our lives are going to be changed forever! Not to mention the whole labor ordeal.

John is more excited than I am, but I think he mostly just wants time off work :). I had to take work off on Wednesday and then we had fall break yesterday and today so I really want to go back at least one more day. Of course I don't really have a choice, despite what John thinks. I hate sitting at home and thinking about it and waiting, it is the worse! I'm ready to be busy again at work and not worrying about it all the time.

He will come when he was meant to come and we are ready whenever he decides the time is right.

Do you think this is what John is like at work?

Halloween Fun

I was never a huge fan of dressing up and walking around for candy every Halloween, but I do enjoy a lot of the Halloween activities.

#1 Decorating

I would love my house to be decorated like some of the houses in the neighborhood, but I realize this will take some time. A friend of mine posted this on her blog and I think I will try and recreate this one because it is so cute. I love to see all the houses decorated in the neighborhood though.

#2 Hocus Pocus

Who doesn't love this movie? I look forward to it every year. I hope that it will be on sometime while we are home.

#3 Trick or Treaters

I've mentioned it before, but I'm so excited for our first trick or treaters this year. Living in Utah and in a young neighborhood, John predicts that we will need 500 pieces if we do the trunk or treat too. I can't believe it but when I tell people they say John is about right. Crazy Utah kids, and we are contributing!!

#4 Haunted Houses

I'm pretty much a chicken now, and John will never let me go to a haunted house this year, but this haunted mill was actually one of our first dates. This was were we held hands for the first time, and cuddled (because I was freezing the whole time). I think if the baby doesn't come on time and we need some motivation we might scare this baby out. Next year I think I will convince him to go, if I watch some Disney movie afterwards so I don't have nightmares.

What do you do during Halloween?

General Conference

This was John and I's last general conference without a child. I'm sure things will be a little different come April, but one thing that will remain the same is tradition.

In my family we spent Sunday in pajamas all day long!!! I don't do this lately because we end up at family's for dinner, but I did spend the day in yoga pants which are close enough. Second and most deliciously is that Mom always made amazing bubble bread. We normally only got bubble bread for conference and that is it, so it was always a real treat.

It took me a long night of frustration but I was able to recreate this most wonderful breakfast.

I liked baking it for just the two of us because I got to eat as much as I wanted instead of having to share with the family, but I did miss them. I had forgotten how good this was though and might have to make it more often then twice a year.

John's tradition is orange rolls for breakfast. I guess our family's are both food based. Any ways I actually bought orange rolls (because I wasn't going to bake both) but we left it at John's parents house and I killed his tradition.

As our family grows we will probably have some of our own traditions, but for now we will stick with what we have done in our family's while growing up.

What are some of your conference traditions?

Food Cravings

So my pregnancy hasn't led to very many side effects. I do have swollen feet and I was exhausted for 2 weeks at the beginning, but compared to the majority, this is an easy pregnancy. I'm not sure if my cravings are due to the pregnancy (because I had cravings before all the time) but these are some of the things I've been craving lately.

1. Salty things

This was fulfilled tonight when we went to Texas Roadhouse with this Cactus Blossom, but includes chips and french fries to name a few. I don't think that this is helping my swollen feet but it is totally worth it.

2. Fish and Chips

I've never been a fish fan but ever since the Olympics I seem to always be ready to eat them. 

3. Hamburger

Yummy burgers!!! I had one last week at Red Robin when John's sister took us out. Mine was delicious but the problem was that John's sister's friend order fish and chips and then I wanted both.

4. Cold Water

This is probably due to all the salt, but I've been drinking a lot of water, and it doesn't help with my bathroom trips.

Do you have any craving's lately?