Cereal

Yeah... It's about 2 am and I just came down stairs for a bowl of one of these

I cannot get enough! It may be a pregnancy thing, but I am loving me some cereal lately. Doesn't really matter what kind so long as its got some cold milk in there. I have NEVER been a big milk person either.

I remember in high school when the brother of a friend of mine would eat huge amounts of cereal in one giant bowl! I haven't gone as far as breaking out the salad bowl yet, but now it doesn't seem so crazy:)

Sisters!

Sisters!

This last week was baby shower week!

It was so much fun and I loved everyone for their thoughtful and amazing gifts!

My mom is in town for the blessing of my brother's baby girl and she was able to come to both my showers. I had a family one in Troutdale and a church/friend one in Albany. My sister Sadie wasn't able to make it to the family one and so she came to the one in Albany. As usual we got many many comments on how much we look alike. But what was unexpected to me was the amount of comments on how much older I looked that her (she is my older sister). They may have been saying how young she looked but I just kept hearing how old I looked... Regardless, it caused me to reflect on my sisters and just how amazingly gorgeous they are. So I thought I would post a few pictures of them!

Baby Sister Kezi who never ceases to amaze me with her outgoing talents and overall awesome personality. Every time I see her she gets more and more beautiful!

Little sister Kate who's shy and calm demeanor is complementary to her mesmerizingly green eyes. She too gets more and more beautiful every time I see her. I cannot believe she will be off to college next year!

My "twin" sister Sadie who never seems to age. I wonder where she found the fountain of youth or if she has frequent flyer miles to neverland saved up! Regardless I hope to follow in her footsteps :)

And I cannot forget to mention my other sisters who I love and are equally amazing and beautiful!!

Beautiful and Strong sister in law Johnna who I always could spend hours talking to. It has been a great time being pregnant together and being able to learn from her as she is diligent in educating herself in all the important details.

And Rachel! Who has a one in a million smile and is one of the most giving and caring people I know! I love being able to spend any time I possible can with her and could lose a week just hanging out.

Of course (now being pregnant and thinking about being a mom!) all these beautiful women could not be possible without our mothers! Thank you to them who gave everything to us including their complete love and devotion!

New Years and Anniversary

2010 was a lot of fun. Many new milestones! Ben and I completed a year at OSU. Ben did an excellent job with College Works Painting and was National Manager of the Year. I got to go to camp. I got knocked up! Ben and I celebrated our 6th year wedding anniversary. And there is more that I am sure I am not thinking of.

This is a picture of me at almost 28 weeks and the day of our anniversary.

For our anniversary we went to Portland City Grill which is where we had our first date! We love it when we save enough to go there. The sushi is amazing! I was sad that I was limited to just the roles with smoked salmon but it was still good. They are super cute and had a table with a card signed by the staff that said happy anniversary and then gave us a delicious dessert on the house. The restaurant is on the 3oth floor of the US Bank building in Portland and it has amazing views. Its a special place for us and we love to go.

News years was a blast this year. We went up to visit Ben's sister and her fiance in Tacoma Washington. They recently moved into a cute place that I LOVE. It had original hard wood floors and glass door knobs. It really made us want to move again... I go through the urge to move about once a month and I quickly hopped onto craigslist to see what was available. On the way home, Ben and I switched back into logical mode and since a move to a house would be at least $250 more a month we decided to add that extra amount to our savings account every month and see how well we handle the budget cuts to our extra spending. If we really want it then we will cut some things out and be extra thrifty! We decided to revisit the moving idea in a couple months after we see how we do.
Ben has been obsessed with the idea of a Nerf gun war ever since he heard the idea from my older brother Isaac and his wife. Her family has one every year during Christmas. So I picked him up a Nerf gun for Christmas and we made plans to make it a New Years tradition. It goes something similar to this but with Nerf guns instead of knives and no pills.

We actually watched this clip before and did the jammie shuffle. Well... Rachel and I did. Then we turned off the lights and turned on some ambient war sounds. It was a blast! Of course we had to stock up on ammo and guns so we made a trip to Target and spent waaayyy too much on Nerf guns. So much for trying to limit our extra spending :) Actually this was before we decided that so I guess Ben is off the hook.

We couldn't find glow stick necklaces so we made our own.



Josh was self named the Mole.

It was so much fun!!! We played it a couple of nights and I am sure that Rachel and Josh will be finding Nerf bullets for a couple months.

Christmas brings...

My third trimester!!! It was official Christmas day. I have 13 weeks left! I cannot believe it! It seems like it is going by so fast. With school starting up the first week in January, I feel like it is going to go by even faster. We went to the Strebin's for Christmas day and got to hang out with the Guthrie side of the family. Ben's cousin Amy is also pregnant and is due about 10 weeks after me. It is fun to have so many people pregnant :) I won a Gap gift card for the family Christmas exchange that I am going to try and spend on me, but lets be serious... it will most likely get spend on little baby Payton. It's just so hard not to!

We hung out with Sadie and the kidlets for a couple of hours on Christmas eve. I wish we could have spent more time with them. They are so much fun! Miriam was dancing and singing "We wish you a merry Christmas" very beautifully. We got the girls some makeup and little boxes to keep it in that I wrote out their names on. They had a lot of fun putting it on. I tried to get Emma more grown up make up. I think she liked that. Then Johnny got some Spider man and Wolverine bionacles. He was pretty excited. I can't believe how fast they are growing up! I want them to stay this little forever!

We opened up Christmas presents on Christmas eve since Rachel (Ben's sister) and Josh (her fiance) had to drive up to Tacoma that night so Josh could work the next day. We got to hang our with them all week and play Settlers of Katan. It was such a fun week! I love those guys. I wish we lived closer together! Ben and I got each other bags for Christmas. I got him a Timbuk2 messenger bag that I customized to have an orange logo and be orange on the inside. It is a very nice bag that he really wanted.

Ben got me a Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag. (Which I now realize it not exactly the one pictured, but its really close and moving pictures around on this thing is annoying so I'm not going to change it.) It is pretty sweet! I am super excited about it. My mom and dad got me a really cute bag/purse that is HUGE and I can also use for a diaper bag, so I am set :)

Those were our major gifts. We got lots of great stuff from friends and family. It's pretty crazy to think that next Christmas we will have a little 9 month old. I can't wait!!!

Another football post

I know I know.... I am weird and I love football, but this year has the potential to be the worst year in football ever. With the Beavers not going to a bowl game and the Ducks having the potential to win it all, I would usually rely on my trusty Colts. Unfortunately they are in danger of not making it to the playoffs! Add to that the Patriots are getting picked as a team to win the super bowl and that is my nightmare! Regardless, I have total faith in the Colts. They are going to make it to the playoffs. Even if they have many injuries and Clark is out for the season. Although I am contemplating that this is the universes way of forcing me to stop getting so stressed out and excited every Sunday. If that is the case, universe... I promise to calm down! Well who am I kidding. I can't make that promise!

One season over while another begins...

If you didn't know this years Civil War was a big one. The University of Oregon Ducks were/are ranked #2 and a win meant they would go to the BCS national championship game. The Oregon State Beavers had to win to go to a bowl game at all. In the beginning of the year there were high hopes for the Beavs. The schedule set us up to play some big teams (Boise State and TCU) out of conference. Unfortunately we lost both. Add to that one of our key players

James Rodgers tore his knee.

and our first year QB struggled at times.

Last year the winner went to the Rose Bowl and the Ducks won. As Beavers we felt it was our game and it was taken from us. So this year we wanted nothing more than to take the big one away from the Ducks. I was hoping to see something like this...

But alas... The Ducks won 37 to 20. and it looked more like this.

It was pretty disappointing. The loss meant that our season was over. No more football for us. Needless to say, Ben and I are sore losers and will be cheering for the Auburn Tigers when they face the Ducks this January. With the Colts in playoff jeopardy, this has not been a good year in football for me. But I still have hope for the Colts. I always have hope :)


The good news is that the Christmas Season is here!! Ben and I went out and bought our Christmas tree yesterday and decorated today.

I love this time of year!. We had one day of snow already and it made the campus beautiful! Although I would consider it a light dusting :)

It's she Lovely!!

Introducing Payton Elizabeth Aeby

I know that I am biased but she is so cute! This particular shot was a little difficult to get as she just wanted to curl up and sleep at this point but I'm glad we got it. Her hand is up by her chin and she was moving it downward so it seems like there might be two, but it's just the one caught in action.

She was so good. At first she was moving around stretching out (which was crazy to watch) but then she decided she had enough and wanted a nap. So I had to keep turning from side to side to get her to move. It was pretty crazy to watch her adjust to a more comfortable position every time I did.

For almost the whole pregnancy both Ben and I thought we were having a boy. I was confused about it but I never got the feeling we were having a girl, so I thought I must then be a boy. Then about 2 weeks ago I had a dream that I was holding an adorable blue eyed, brown curly haired little girl. It started me doubting my convictions in it being a boy. Still, other than the dream I had no inklings of a girl.

When we were in the doctors office getting the ultra sound, the technician knew we wanted to know the sex and had been informing us all along the way of what she was doing. She would let us know that she was measuring the femur length and the cranium and checking to make sure she was opening and closing her mouth. So when she got to the gender it was a shock when without telling us she was looking for the gender at all, she mentioned she had girly parts and was in fact a girl. It took us a second to realize what she had just told us and Ben said, "Wait, did you just say she is a girl?"

It was so exciting! There SHE was! She was very shy and didn't want to show off too much, but she gave us a good enough look to make sure there was no doubt. It took me a while to adjust to the idea of a girl, and now I can't think of anything else.

As for the name, we have gotten lots of questions about it so I thought I would post how we got the name. I like girl names that could also be boy names. As Ben and I were going over some of them, Sam, Taylor, Jessie, etc... we came upon Payton. I loved it! And no... not because of Peyton Manning (although it doesn't hurt any). Then we thought about middle names and we wanted it to be something in the family. Ben's sister has a middle name Elizabeth and we liked the sound of that. Then Ben mentioned her initials would be PEA and we could call her our little sweet pea. I was set. I loved it. Sweet peas are beautiful and smell absolutely amazing and one of my favorites. I thought this was a special name. So that is it.

I cannot wait to meet her!!!