IT'S A GIRL!!!!!

Here she is!

Can you see her face?

I guess I am a little late on the uptake of my New Year's Resolution to update our blog once a month. So, we missed January, but I will make up for it with another LONG update.

But let me put the BIG news first, so you don't have to read the whole thing to find out. We had our ultrasound on January 25 and found out that our baby is developing exactly as it should so far, everything is on schedule for the due date of May 30, and IT'S A GIRL!!!! We are planning on naming her Lucy-Mae. I am not sure, yet, whether I want to hyphenate it or combine it into one word (LucyMae) because I want her to go by Lucy Mae, not just Lucy. I am also still trying to think of a good middle name to go along with it....we'll see. That's the big news for us. Now on to the update....

So, December was, of course, an awesome month. The holidays are always so fun-filled, family-packed, and fattening....and it all held true this year too. Between all the treats everyone else brought us, family parties, and the home-made caramels we made for family and friends we definitely had our share of sugar and fat this December.

Our little Christmas tree and all our fun presents!

We did finally make it through the end of the semester and finals, but were immediately bombarded with numerous rehearsals and concerts for the Orchestra at Temple Square and my violin studio. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir's annual Christmas concert fills the Conference Center for 4 performances every year, and this year was definitely no different (with over a million requests for tickets). The Kings' Singers came as the guest artist and were amazing. It was a really fun concert to be a part of. But it was also very time consuming. The week following this big event I held my annual Christmas Recital for my violin/viola studio. It was a GREAT success and I was so proud of all my students. They have all improved so much this past year and learned SO much Christmas music for this recital. I also decided to take my studio to a local elderly living center to give them some Christmas cheer this year. We went to the Chateau Brickyard living center, and although we didn't have a huge audience, the smiles on the faces of those who were there made it all worth it. Hopefully we'll have a better turn out next time! The holidays were definitely filled with plenty of music for me!

Aren't my students cute?

This is ALL of them...

The best part of the holiday season this year was having my sister Brittani's family drive all the way down from Canada to visit. She and her husband Aaron Mitchell have four children (Theo, Addie, Emerson, and Sera) who are SOOO adorable. We had a WONDERFUL time with them here, and wish they lived a little closer so that we didn't only get to see them once or twice a year. We even managed to get ALL of them up to the slopes for a day of skiing. They all did extremely well, and I'm pretty sure Emerson was the cutest 2-year old anyone has ever seen skiing. Along with all the fun the Mitchells brought with them, they brought the cold and flu that has been going around my family like wildfire ever since, but somehow miraculously passing me by until this LAST week! UGH! I was thinking that the pre-natal vitamins must be the solution to all my problems since I wasn't getting the bug, but now I am not so sure.

With the Mitchell family at the Canyons

Theo LOVED his first day of skiing and
threw a huge tantrum when he had to leave.

Addie is a little angel!

Have you ever seen a cuter 2 year old skiing?

This is pretty much their personalities EXACTLY caught on film.

Emerson always has something to say in a sing-song voice

Theo is all mischief!

Addie is the CUTEST and sweetest girl!

Breakfast at Village Inn!!

We also attended all the family and friend's Christmas parties we could have hoped for, where we were fed plenty of food, were able to visit with people we love, and received and gave some fun gifts.

The Eyre Family Christmas party

The Greene Family Christmas Party

For New Year's we headed up to Bear Lake to my mom and Don's new cabin. We had a great time playing games and skiing "the Beav" on New Year's Eve with my family. It was so fun to ski with my family and finally not be waiting up for anyone because we are all old enough and good enough to just GO now! We spent New Year's Eve with our gang of married friends: Andrea and Abe Denzer, Laura and Brad Ball, and Julie and Jared Bristow. We have started a tradition of Fondu New Year's Eve parties....way too much food, lots of games and dancing!

New Year's Eve...all sorts of fun!

Once January and 2008 hit us we had one week left before school started, which was mostly spent skiing, snow-shoeing, ice-skating, and having as much fun as we could. For a Christmas holiday dinner Sam took me to the Roof Restaurant, which was beautiful and fun. So, for Sam's birthday dinner I took him to Ruby River Steakhouse....we LOVED it. WOW, steak can be SOOOO good. We also had a birthday bowling party for Sam with 15 people down at Bonwood Bowl....it was a PARTY!!!

Ice-skating at the Gallivan Center with Sam's family

Skiing at Alta with Noah and Serenity

It's been a pretty good snow year.....

Snow-shoeing up Lambs' Canyon

It was SOOO beautiful!

Sam's 26th bowling birthday party!

Serenity, us, Heidi and Steve Myers

The happy, pregnant couple!

Paul and Tenille, Noah, Eli and Julie

And then, for Sam's real birthday on January 7th, he got the best gift ever...school started:( We are both in our LAST semester of school. So, we will have a double graduation on May 2. I will be earning my Master of Music degree, and Sam will be earning his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with minors in both Chemistry and Music. Pretty awesome eh? Sam is also waiting to hear back from the schools he has applied to for Biomedical Engineering Master's Degrees. We did already hear back from the U that he didn't get in, so we know this much: WE WILL MOST LIKELY BE MOVING THIS SUMMER SOMETIME!!! I am actually kind of happy that we didn't get into the U, even though they have a great program and it would be cheaper to stay here, because we are ready for an adventure. We just want to get out of Utah and into the big-bad world for a little while....not forever, but just for the experience of it. We have no idea where we will be going yet, but we do know we will be going somewhere else....

Since school started, we have been amazed at how busy we are this semester during the week, but have tried to keep our weekends as free of work and major commitments as we can in order to actually be able to spend some time together and use the season passes we bought at Alta. We have been pretty successful so far, and were even able to cross-country ski into Sam's family's cabin last weekend with my sisters, Serenity and Aubrey. We had PERFECT weather and a wonderful time.

Cross-country skiing at Sam's cabin....a PERFECT day

Look at that perfectly CLEAR sky!