she's here!

Elin K Quist

4/23/2013 at 9:34 pm

7 lbs 5 oz, 19 1/4 in. 

birth story is coming soon!

iphone photo dump

i always thought we would do something a little more special for our 5th anniversary but being 8 months prego, we opted to take it easy. it ended up being a really fun day of hanging out. in downtown charlottesville there is this giant chalkboard wall, so i thought i would add a little something to it. :)

 we went on a long drive out by the shenandoah mountains and ran into a town with the street name of bacon hollow.  you can let your imagination go wild with what the town was like, it was crazy.

nate and i love bookstores.  we checked out a bunch while we were downtown.

 i splurged. babys 1st swimsuit. i decided since we will be in vegas this summer with a pool she needed a suit. i don't think i've mentioned our summer plans but nate is interning with a judge in las vegas. we are very excited to be close to our fams with our new babe!

 

 so i had nate take some pics of me when i was 22 weeks. this is one of them. i remember being so depressed looking at it and thinking i was so big. HA

 nate's cousins wedding in pennsylvania back in february.

 this is a pic with no filter! i snapped it coming down provo canyon over the holidays. so beautiful. i love the mountains.

 2 weekends ago i drove to dc for amy's shower. we are 6 days apart and thought the timing will probably never be the same with other pregnancies so we got a silly bump pic.

 1st time taking advantage of the parking. i felt a little silly.

modern technology is amazing. nate's bro got home from his mission and while we were both sad we couldn't be there, we still got to feel the excitement with facetime. 

and that ends this random post..:)

basketball girls

 talk about the best calling ever. young women's basketball coach.

we had practices every wednesday night for 2 months and then a tournament last weekend. my previous basketball experience made it so we did lots of fun drills and played games. i even played with them most of the time.

the girls are the sweetest and made tie-dye shirts so our team matched, and even the coach got one. :)
i've been so impressed with the young women here.  they are all genuinely friends. there are no cliques and everyone is just nice to each other. they are so strong in the gospel and just such a neat group of girls. i guess growing up where i did, i didn't have to be friends with the girls in my ward, and i wasn't, except for a few.  i regret that now because i see the strong bond they have. this is how young women's should be everywhere! and yes i got comments constantly at the tournament about hiding the basketball under my shirt...so funny, i guess. ha

5 years ago

this guy and i tied the knot. i can't believe he is mine forever. i feel so lucky and blessed.

valentine's, snow, and 30 days without sugar

 had lots of fun folding baby e's clothes and getting things organized this weekend.

 so i'm not very good at communicating/expressing how i feel.  i saw this on the web and thought i would do it.  the orange sticky notes say why i love my valentine. when i first started writing on the sticky notes, i thought there is no way i can get 35. but once i got going, i couldn't write down everything i love about my valentine fast enough(cheesy, yes). i got up early on valentine's day and stuck them on our door. nate was pleasantly surprised!

 one of my birthday gifts-1 1/2 hr. pregnancy massage. this was good and bad. good because it felt so great, but bad because it made me realize how bad i hurt everywhere and wish that i could afford them weekly.

 this was my outfit to work the other day(good ol substituting). i swear this shirt fit when i put it on that morning. ha

so snow storms here are pretty much a joke. they close school for any little amount. seriously. well they were predicting a bad storm, nate and i thought nothing of it. we ended up getting 9 inches! schools were closed for 3 days. i love when i can't work. people are still out of power. any way i took this pic as nate was walking to school. he's dedicated. and thankfully it was 60 degrees yesterday and there is little to no snow left. 

and last but not least. i'm doing something a little crazy. during the holidays and the month of january i was eating a lot of junk. i'm one who doesn't have a lot of control once i start eating said junk. so i thought i'll go off of sugar for a month. i tried in january, made it like 4 days. then in february, i got serious. and by this friday, i'll have hit a month! woohoo. it has been tough. i did not realize sugar is in everything. cereal, bread, pasta sauces, ketchup, snacks, the list goes on and on.  i found some cereal i really love, even though i mostly eat oatmeal for breakfast. having no sugar has made me really experiment with some healthier cooking/baking and i've really enjoyed it. i've taken sugar out of recipes that have small amounts and i can never tell the difference. take above picture for example. i know it's hard to tell what it is.  but i've been craving ice cream like no other, so i scrounged the internet for some healthier ice cream recipes.  i found one using coconut milk and then adding in your ingredients. here is the recipe. just read my comment. it seriously was so amazing and i even had friends try it and they loved it too. by the way, i'm sure you all love pinterest as much as me, but i think everyone should start a board like this one. i love when i come across others that have made a board like this. anyways, i hope once i am allowed to eat sugar i won't go crazy. i do have to admit i feel pretty great. although i am very excited for easter candy.

so that was a bunch of randomness... thanks for reading!

exploring

nate and i haven't explored our town as much as we would have liked to, mostly because the guy is busy. our friends amy and andrew came to town this weekend and it was so nice to have them here and have nate take a break from school. we tried to fit in as much as we could while they were here. we went downtown for lunch on saturday and walked around. downtown is so charming, i'll have to post a pic. then we decided to go to thomas jefferson's house in monticello. it was really interesting and i enjoyed the tour(it probably helped that we didn't have to pay the outrageous price to get the tour). at the end i was really struggling to make it. just the usual pregnancy woes-thirsty, need to pee, sick of standing. 

group pic. have i mentioned we are only a week apart?                  nate loves the classic kneel pose

i'm so excited about this. it will be nice to transition to 

parenthood with friends, not to mention,

i can't wait to get our girls together.

 

 the views were beautiful everywhere you looked. side note-32 wks.

the front of the house. i loved the door and windows in the front.

that night we went to a new restaurant and had delicious southern food and then watched a movie. sunday morning we had waffles and bacon. yes, we love our food. what a fun weekend! i wish we had visitors more often.

showered

the weekend before we came back to virginia, my mom and sister-in-law, had a baby shower for baby q and i. i sent my mom a few pics and told her what i wanted and it turned out so great. we got so many nice things and i felt so blessed and lucky for the generosity people showed. now for a few details:

fruit pizza bar/mini oreo cheesecake/mini reeses cheesecake/mini blueberry cheesecake

all my favorite candy

another pic of the cute table

 so i didn't want games at my shower so we stenciled onesies and made headbands. here is the onesie decorating table, i'll have to take some pics of the finished projects.  they turned out really cute! we used stencils and fabric paint, and iron-ons.

here you can see the other table, it was for headbands. again, they turned out adorable. baby q has tons of headbands now. ha 

my wonderful mom. she spent a lot of time making sure i had a perfect shower, and let me tell you, i did!

now i just wish i was closer to having this babe. the shower made me feel a little anxious/excited because i have  so many things now. i just wish she was coming sooner. although i'm sure the next 9 weeks will fly by(yes only 9 left!).