We're Still Here

One of my goals for this year is to do at least one little post a week. It might not amount to much, but it will be a way of updating friends and family of or status.

Here's some pictures to round up the end of another year.

Since the last time I've posted Twila has gone from walking to running and babbling to talking proficiently for her age. She definitely keeps me on my toes. In April she got blessed with her first sibling (to learn more about that follow this link). Brigham has become one of her very best friends. She's always trying to make him laugh and show him how to be more mobile. As fun and energetic as Twila is, Brigham is calm, quiet, and peaceful. We are still in Rexburg, but we are moving on to bigger and better things by the end of the month. We are really excited about change and getting to move forward.

We are busy with work, kids, and lots of comical moments. Besides being busy with kids, my sisters and I have been working on a craft/lifestyle blog called Shaffer Sisters. If you want a better update of the last year, you should check it out. Our goal for 2013 is to get our business going so that we can sell a lot of the things we have made for our families that we absolutely love and think every home would benefit from having.

Catch up with pictures

Twila loves baths!
Merry Christmas!
Having fun in a green bath.
T$Money (the $ is silent. If you haven't seen Band Slam don't be perplexed)
Twila in her blessing dress
Picking out pumpkins as a family.
Happy Fall walk with Aunt SL
Teaching Twila to pray. Oh so reverent.
Twila was a cow for Halloween.
Apparently she didn't want to do kissy lips.
Twila loves baths!
We moved in September. Levi was really helpful getting the last of the stuff out one late night.
Grandma Betty and Twila.Squishy face. I'm not sure how Twila feels about it.
Aug. 1st family pictures.
Pictures at the park.
Twila was just a couple weeks old in this picture. She's on the quilt I made her.

Still No Baby

The last two doctors appointments have proved basically uneventful. Nothing has changed at all. I'm still not dilated and only 50% effaced. The bummer part of this is that my due date was Sunday. My doctor really wants to induce me, but I have never wanted to be induced so this is an interesting dilemma.

I don't know what will happen, but we will just have to wait and see. I have another appointment on Thursday and that's when I will decide what's going to happen. So this means there could be a baby here this weekend or it may be next week when she decides to come on her own.

Other than this things are going good. My baby blanket is basically done. Today I think we will stretch it out and pin it so that we can baste (I think that's what it's called) it. Then all I will have to do is the binding and additional hand quilting if I feel like it.

I'm getting really excited because it looks really good. So although it's somewhat a bummer that we don't have our baby here yet, there's still some good to waiting. It seems like every day Curtis or SarahLynn gives her a pep talk that she needs to be here. It's funny, I think they're not very effective motivational speakers because it's not working.

The Saunders Family Reunion is this weekend and it's too bad that I can't go, but it's okay because Mom and Dad have offered to take me to the hot air balloon festival on Saturday in Driggs. That could be fun. I just hope it's not too hot. The weather the last week has been significantly warmer. My pregnancy has been wonderful but now it's just getting hot. We will keep things updated if there's any big changes.

Just One Week

It's crazy to think that in one week from today our baby is due. So she could be here any day now. It would be convenient for her to come sooner because the Saunders have a family reunion in Star Valley over the 4th of July weekend. So the sooner she comes, the more likely I am to be able to go to it.

My last appointment I wasn't dilated at all, but I was 50% effaced. I guess that's progress though, and any progress brings her closer to holding her in my arms. I have my next appointment on Tuesday morning so we will see how that goes. To be honest, last week when they checked me, it was a relief that I wasn't dilated at all because I knew she probably wasn't coming last week and it was a super busy week.

This is one of the maternity pictures that SarahLynn took of Curtis and I.

Levi just barely (last Sunday) moved to Rexburg so we have been super busy with that. On Tuesday night Erika, the boys (Seth, Gabrielle, Hyrum, and Enoch), and Mom all came to Rexburg and stayed until Thursday. In my small 2 bedroom apartment we fit almost everyone. Enoch stayed in the crib, Landin was on the floor with his sleeping bag, Seth and Gabrielle slept on the futon, Hyrum on the loveseat, and Erika shared the bed with me (we sent Curtis to sleep in Landin's bed and Mom stayed at SarahLynn's).

The boys while climbing R-Mountain. As you can see it's raining at the time.

The excitement consisted of 2 yummy breakfasts, a hike up R-Mountain, getting rained on, eating on the kitchen floor, a girls trip to Idaho Falls, and taking the boys to the movies (How to Train Your Dragon--I highly recommend it for all ages, it is such a cute show).

On Wednesday Mom and I also spent some time with Chase (my horse). We decided to go for a ride. Since the baby has dropped lower I didn't know how that would be with the saddle horn so I decided that I would go on back and Mom could go on front. This proved more interesting than I had imagined. I am quite a bit rounder in the front now so it was really hard to swing up to the back. Chase had to be really patient because it seriously took about three minutes of effort to get up. Once I got on, everything felt great. Unfortunately the ride proved uneventful. So I will just keep waiting.

Saturday was my baby shower in Rexburg. Most of my very best friends were there so it was definitely enjoyable. SarahLynn made the theme: 'Allison is going to pop!' and so most everything had to do with the word pop. There were poppyseed muffins, lollipops, and popcorn (carmel and kettle). We also played waterballoon volleyball. Mom brought a carrot cake from Costco that was pretty good too. Lexine let us do it in their backyard and it was so nice to be outside. I loved it.

I'm really excited with the anticipation for what will come in the future, but I will just have to wait and see how things go. One thing I am really looking forward to is chocolate. I know I still shouldn't have a ton, but even a little is better than none at all. Curtis has really been a champ through it all and I'm glad the end is near.

Sunny days and the smell of stinky feet…

It is so refreshing to step outside and be able to soak up the sun. Also it is wonderful for the recent time change. I can get out of basketball practice at 7pm and it’s still warm and bright enough that I could walk home if I wanted. It’s my favorite. I love the fresh air.

So it’s been a while since I updated my blog. Life has been crazy busy and really awesome. Curtis and I are both in school this semester and I have been coaching a competitive basketball team at BYU-Idaho. My classes have been really hard but also really good (ENG316, BIO208, PH279-Modern Physics, CHEM105, and PH250).

It's funny to see the role reversal in this years season and last years. Last year Scary
was pregnant and so she coached and I played and this year I'm pregnant so I coached and she played.

I’m getting really excited for the end of the semester. This is usually a time that I dread, but this semester I am excited. It seems like the teachers usually pile on a lot of stuff at the end of the semester and the last week and a half you hardly get any sleep. It’s not going to be like that this semester. My teachers have made the entire semester difficult with an average of two exams a week and some weeks all the way up to four. There was one week that I spent over ten hours in the testing center.

Needless to say it’s been busy. The good side of this is that every one of my teachers have spread out things well enough that I’m not going to die the last week. Also another pro is that when April 9th hits I will be able to have a few months to get ready for the baby (start making frilly dresses, slippers, and a quilt).

The less refreshing part of my life deals with stinky feet. I learned something recently as I was doing laundry. I was tired of not being able to fold all the socks because the matches ended up in a different load than the one I was folding. To counter this problem I decided that I would just wash all the socks in one load. Brilliant, I know. Or, maybe not so much…


While I was doing laundry I had also decided to wash my coat from the winter. I set it in the bathtub to soak for the day, but at one point Curtis wanted a shower so my coat had to be moved and put in the washer. This was at the same moment I was doing the sock load. It was put into the washer without a moment’s hesitation.

The next day when I was leaving the apartment I went to put on my coat. It smelled very strongly of smelly feet. Mom’s theory is that because of the down feathers it held the smell stronger than the socks did. I had to rewash it and now it’s really clean. It smells pretty good, but I think it might still have a hint of sock to it. I don’t know if it’s my imagination or really good pregnant person smellers, but I now hate the smell of feet.

Our baby is doing great (at every checkup she has measured exactly to the day of our due date)! We’re having a girl and we’ve decided to name her Twila (after my grandma). She’s gotten a lot of power lately when she kicks and moves now. It makes me laugh. In three months she will be here and I can’t wait.


That the general just of our life at this moment. Tomorrow Scary has knee surgery. I am glad she’ll have it fixed even though the first month of crutches is rough. Its revenge time, I get to throw a full bottle of orange juice at her knee now just days after surgery. Just kidding (inside joke, SarahLynn accidentally did this to me and she’s given me permission to get her back even though there’s no way I will do it).

So Much To Be Grateful For!

We just had the best Thanksgiving ever!!! Nothing could be better than eating lots of food and playing football in a cow pasture while one of your uncles carries around a dead mouse (don't worry, he was wearing gloves) to help improve team strategy. To top it off, I got to bring a friend from Albania and it was her first Thanksgiving ever. Curtis went fishing with my dad two times and had a great time. The biggest surprise came when my sister, that currently lives in Minnesota, showed up with her husband and four boys at our house. I loved it, but I love surprises a lot better than other people in my house (especially my dad). We had been down getting stuff with the Thanksgiving sales, but as soon as we found out we packed up our car and headed home to Carey.

These are all of my nephews and niece on the Shaffer side. It's crazy how fast our family gets bigger! I love it!

Our other exciting news has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but is still really awesome. Curtis and I are having a baby and it is due on June 27th. It has been the hardest thing to wait and tell the family about, but now it's time. Since only family reads our blog you are all still lucky to find out before everyone else. The big debate is do we find out what gender it's going to be, or do we just wait till it's born? Curtis is wanting to find out and I'm wanting to wait. Lol. So we will just have to see when the time comes. We are really excited and Baby Saunders is going to have tons of cousins near it's age. SarahLynn's baby is 8 weeks old. Marica's baby is due Dec. 24, and Jenna's baby is due in March. Not to mention all of our cousins that are also having babies in the next six months.

They gave us another picture, but this one is our favorite. Our baby kinda looks like a really cute gummy bear right now!

This is all for this time, but it is pretty great news and just a very happy post. We love you all!

4 months of Bliss

So about a week after Curtis and I got married, Scarey (SarahLynn) decided that I should have a blog. 'Blogging is what you do once you're married.' So I let her set it all up and then I did nothing... My friend Megan was talking to me and reminded me I have a blog. So here I am.
Life is really great!

We now have furniture and aren't resorting to a camp chair with a blanket draped over it to make it look more fancy. Scarey and Brock let us use their old TV which screen is about twice as big as what we were using before. Mom got me a blender, and this morning Curtis made peach smoothies with it for me.

Even though we're married we still haven't dropped off the face of the planet. We are always doing stuff with our friends. The picture above is from the day after we got our vacuum and Lyle decided to crawl into the box that it had came in. They tried out the vacuum and thought it was the coolest vacuum. I told them they were welcome to use it whenever they want.

This summer was a summer of weddings, 3 of Curtis' cousins got married and also my dear cousin Shani. It was exciting once she got married because then we weren't called the newly weds anymore.

Even though we didn't end up going to Yellowstone for our Honeymoon, we went about 2 months later with my friends. Lane had a friend from Latvia come visit named Vitaly, he was really funny. The concept of don't get too close to the buffalo didn't mean anything to him. One time he was like five feet away and still taking pictures. There was a lot of funny stories. The one that makes me laugh the most is when we had all our tents set up and food made we started telling stories about bears and wolves (we weren't in an actual campground so we were actually possibly exposed to animals like that). Everyone did a very thorough job of cleaning up any food that might of fallen and putting the toothpaste in the car. Curtis and I got to keep the hatchet in our tent. :D.

Two things also happened this summer. The first is that I made a new friend, her name is Megan and I think she is awesome. She loves life and is as random and crazy as me. I think she is great, and I know that she will be my friend for a very, very long time. The other thing that happened is we (Curtis and I) finally brought my horse, Chase, to Rexburg. It is so great having him so close and being able to ride him whenever I want!

On October 2nd my dear sister, Scarey, finally had Rhett he is such a handsome young man and I am so glad I get to see him so frequently. Curtis just had his birthday and turned 23 and I had mine about two weeks later and now I'm 21. My favorite present I got him was a harmonica and the favorite thing I got from him was spurs! So awesome. Life is really great. I love being with my best friend, but I hate when he's sick. I just don't know what to do for him yet.

I'm so glad it's fall and that I have been given so much. my pantry has a ton of canned peaches, and I love all of my classes this semester. I really don't know what a blog is supposed to be like so I will work on improving it. If you have any suggestions just let me know.