birthday week

even though my birthday was over three weeks ago, it's still the month of april, so i can still blog about it...right?? my husband was SO sweet to me the whole entire day (even though we were super stressed with finals/work/everything else)--and we pretty much celebrated the entire weekend. thursday (the second) i woke up to breakfast in bed which was a big box of einstein's bagels (my favorite!) and a sweet note from him. i went to work, where all the kids were especially nice to me, and then i headed up to campus to go to class. on my way i received a phone call from danny--and he had his entire seminary class sing happy birthday to me. it was so cute when they all sung "happy birthday sister mckinley". i LOVE his kids. then about an hour later, i got about 25 text messages all at the same time. for his 7th period class he wrote my number up on the board and then told them to pull out their cell phones (they were all a little hesitant because they aren't ever supposed to have their cell phones out, and they thought it was some kind of object lesson) but once they found out it was my birthday, the texts came pouring in. once again, they are awesome! i had class at 3 and then that night, danny and i went out to red robin to get my free birthday burger! (if you're not already signed up--all you have to do is go here and you'll get all hooked up!) our order ended up getting lost, and our waitress felt super bad, so she gave us a free appetizer AND a free dessert! all we had to pay for was danny's burger. what a deal! it was super good and we had a wonderful time!

after dinner we headed to my parent's where we opened gifts and laughed and laughed. my family decided to get my maternity pants (along with a few other things) and it was hilarious. they were huge, so i had to exchange them, but everyone is excited for me to get BIG. (prego pictures to come soon...i promise!)

friday (the third) was a continuation of the birthday week and after we were done with work/classes, we headed up to draper to go to the brand new temple! they only do sessions every hour, and we got there 4 minutes before the session started, but luckily we made it in time! it was incredible and absolutely gorgeous, and was a wonderful way to start out conference weekend.

then, we treated ourselves to the melting pot. best. resteraunt. ever. but so so pricey. we figured since this was our last birthday without a baby we could splurge. so we did! we had a great night, and ate SOOO much. ohhh man, the dessert plate was heavenly.


friday night we stayed at danny's sister's house in salt lake and then saturday morning we woke up and attended the saturday morning session of conference. i LOVE conference. i am so grateful for the incredible men and women who do so much for this gospel and are so willing to share their testimonies! i need to be more like that. all of the sessions were great, but there is something so special about being in the actual building as conference takes place. the spirit is so strong. it's amazing.

all in all, my birthday was fantastic! danny's birthday was eight days after mine...we'll blog about that next!

soccer games and power tumbling gyms

for those of you that know my incredible husband...you also probably know that he is incredibly accident-prone. {incredibly might even be an understatement} not only is he accident-prone, but he plays on the byu men's soccer team...not the most accident-free sport. last season, he had shoulder surgery, and about 3 sprained/broken ankles from various games. this season we were determined to have an accident-free year since this will be his last season playing with the team. he was doing SO well, and was starting in every game (they have had 3 official pre-season games so far).

april 10, his birthday, he started in their game against weber state. and 00:55 seconds into the game HE SCORED!! it was probably the coolest goal i've seen in a long time. the goalie did not see it coming at all! he was so excited--as were all of us in the stands. byu won 2-1 and i couldn't have been prouder of my boy.

our friends brittany, ryan, and kim sat by us during the game (which was so much fun) and afterwards, danny's mom treated us all to pf chang's for danny's birthday. oh it was so delicious.


{...THEN...}

april 11 came around.
danny and all of his friends had been planning for quite some time to go to the power tumbling gym in south provo. they were celebrating danny and braden's birthdays and danny was seriously so pumped. he was looking forward to it for days. i decided to stay home, since they hadn't been able to schedule the gym until 10:30 pm, {and i wasn't sure how the little bebe would like all that flipping and jumping around...} so caleb came to pick danny up and they were off. about 20 minutes after they left, i got a call from danny.
{this is how our conversation went down:}

me: hello??
danny: hi babe. how are you?
me: i'm good! how are you?
danny: good!
me: so...why are you calling me? you weren't supposed to be done until midnight. you didn't get hurt did you?
danny: {pause}...yeah.
me: oh no. how bad is it?
danny: pretty bad.
me: you feel ok?
danny: umm...i've been better. i think it might be broken.
me: i'm on my way.

turns out on his SECOND jump his ankle cracked underneath him and he was done for the night. poor guy. he had to leave his own birthday party early. we went to the E.R., but then decided against it to avoid the super hefty bills that come along with visiting that wonderful place. we decided to buy some ice and wrap it up with an ace bandange instead.

{it looked like he had a tennis ball where his ankle bone used to be}

{the following morning...major cankle}

he's doing much better now! the swelling has definitely gone down and he can walk on it (for the most part) but he won't be out on the soccer field for at least a few weeks.
good thing he made that goal!

our new crib

don't worry. we aren't that on top of things...we don't have a baby crib yet. BUT we do have a new place to live! and we LOVE love it. we officially moved in april 6, (thanks to all those who helped us...the move went amazingly smooth) but we are just now feeling mostly settled in. it took awhile to sort through everything (we didn't even think we had that much stuff...but apparently we do) and get organized but we love our new little place! we actually live in a neighborhood now (instead of right in the middle of a parking lot) and our ward seems like it will be wonderful!

{before the big move}

{our lovely refrigerator is straight from the '50s. no joke. it weighs about 500 lbs. and has ZERO storage capacity. but...we still love it.}

{the humongous sinks are a personal favorite of mine...this one especially. i feel like i'm at a water pump every time i wash my hands. love it.}


{AFTER}

some moments are just so priceless

wow. where in the world has the time gone?? life has been somewhat INSANE over the past few weeks! i realized that i never wrote about how we broke the big news to our families, so i thought i'd share some pictures to explain! i saw the cutest family trees at desert book--but they were a little pricey--so danny and i decided to just copy the idea! it ended up being quite a bit more work than we had anticipated, but it was well worth it! first we had to get magnet boards (which we finally found at lowe's) and then we took them to my grandparents to cut in half with a hack saw. not easy. from there, we covered them with paper, i drew the trees, and we got pictures of everyone in our famililes to put on little magnets.

danny was so helpful during the whole project and helped with every step! who knew he had such a creative side to him?? here he is dilligently painting mod podge on top of each picture. what a great husband i have.

the sunday before st. patrick's day we had a big family dinner at my parents house, so we decided that would be a perfect time to tell them about the grandchild they have coming in september. danny and i were SO excited to finally be telling everyone our good news, so once we all sat down at the table, danny ran out to the car and grabbed the gift. (if you can't see in this picture, the little green square under our pictures says: baby mckinley due september 30) my mom was so surprised to get a gift for st. patty's day...but the look on everyone's face was priceless once they realized what was going on. my mom was almost in tears, bekah said she was going to cry--and once mariah heard her mom say that, mariah started screaming/bawling as well. i wish i had that moment on video. it was priceless. needless to say, the whole family was/is super excited and can't wait for grandbaby #3.

all of us (minus alli) after dinner

we told danny's family that following wednesday. (we were going to wait until we celebrated danny's mom's birthday on sunday...but it was just too far away.) they were ecstatic as well and can't wait for grandbaby #4 on the mckinley side. here is the magnet board we made for his parents.

after spending so much time on the magnet boards, we wished we had made one for ourselves! maybe someday soon we'll get around to it...

Baby Bear's Birthday

This is one husband's praising birthday story of his amazing, incredible wife and how she means the world to him. This is why April is the greatest month of all of em!
On April 2nd 1988 in a barn somewhere in kentucky was born the sweetest, prettiest, kindest, cuddliest baby in the history of sweet, pretty, kind, and cuddly babies! Jessica Lynn George was 4 weeks early - so while her mom was visiting her parents in some cowboy'd up town in the middle of nowhere (sorry to anybody that is actually from kentucky), and thinking she had a good month to go... her favorite daughter (sorry alli and cami) couldn't wait any longer. If you know my Jessie she isn't the patient type. Lucky for her, gramps was a doctor and delivered her no problem.
Ok, so i might be exaggerating a bit, just a bit. im fairly positive Jessie has never been on kentucky and half of us couldn't pinpoint it on a map (dang im sorry to all from kentucky! haha). So in reality Jess was born EXACTLY on her due date in provo utah, what an angel! Ever since i knew how to wish on and blow out candles i was wishing for that angel to be mine. WOW im still not sure how i got her! she is absolutely perfect!! i don't know what jessie's wish will be this year, but ihope that she always knows how she has made my dreams and wishes come true. I LOVE YOU BABY BEAR! now the secret nickname is out, oh well. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

we would like to publicly announce...

that little baby mckinley will be born on september 30, 2009!!!

crazy, huh? i guess you could say that's why the blog posts have been somewhat sparse lately...we've had a little bit on our minds. but oh my goodness, let me just tell you that it has been incredible! here's a rundown of the past thirteen weeks: (yes, i am 13 weeks along! can you believe it? one week to go until i'm done with the entire first trimester!...sorry to those of you who are just finding out, like i said, life has been crazy.)

anyways, here's the rundown:

1. as of last week, babycenter.com said that our little baby was the size of a lime! it's amazing to me that he/she is already that big! sometimes it's hard for us to believe, because i'm not showing--at all--but we've seen our baby TWICE now, and heard its little heartbeat so i know that its in there.


2. we just told our parents within the past few weeks and everyone is SO excited! on my side of the family, baby mckinley will be grandbaby #3, and danny's parents will be looking forward to grandbaby #4. all of our siblings that have kids had girls first (and thats what i think it is...) but plenty of other people (including danny) are rooting for a little baby boy. either way, we're going to be super excited; it will be fun to find out come may!

3. as far as "morning sickness" goes, i think i'm pretty much done with that whole thing! hallelujah! i've been scared basically my whole life that i would get as sick as my mom gets (she's sick in bed pretty much the entire nine months, and throws up everything...i love her for having five kids!) but luckily i didn't get that from her. at first, i had absolutely NO energy--i'd get home from work and then crash on our bed and take a nice long nap before i had to get to class. i'd take the elevator everywhere because i didn't even have the motivation to climb up the stairs! that went on for a few weeks in february, and then the migranes started. yuckkkk. i only got a few of them, but i seriously thought i was going to die. my vision got all wacky (even more than it normally is) and my forehead felt like it was splitting in two. (sorry for such descriptiveness...) after about a week of horrible headaches i started throwing up occasionally--but ususally it only happened at night. so much for morning sickness. we found out that if i didn't eat anything after about 8:30, it was smooth sailing from there--but unfortunately, it took a while for us to figure that out. the good news is i haven't thrown up in almost two whole weeks, so i'm feeling pretty darn good about life.

4. danny has been absolutely WONDERFUL to take care of me. he works dinners around my crazy cravings and he wipes my tears everytime i feel like we are absolutely crazy for starting our family this early! he is so busy with soccer/school/teaching seminary but he always seems to make time for me and is such a great example to me of selflessness. i definitely married the perfect man for me, and i am so excited to see him with our baby! holy cow it's going to be amazing.

5. among everything else that has been going on, we are MOVING! (what a crazy life we lead...) for those of you that have been to our place on freedom blvd, its not the most baby-friendly place. you have to walk up a steep flight of stairs to get to the front door, and in the summer it stays blistering hot--at all times. from what i've heard, being hot is the last thing you want while being pregnant so we started looking since provo has the absolute worst selection of married housing. kind of ironic, huh? anyways, we found a cute little basement apartment right off of center street in provo with two bedrooms and its perfect. we have to be out by the 13th of april so this next month may be a little crazy...but i'm excited for the change.

6. lastly, all of these changes have really strengthened my testimony of the gospel of jesus christ. it is amazing to me--everything about the process of bringing a baby into this world. danny and i are definitely scared at times, but we are SO glad that we have our heavenly father to turn to in times of doubt/need/worry.

what an amazing time of life!!

lannie boutique

any of you interested in some adorable clothes for a little one you know?? my friend marie is hosting a giveaway and all you have to do is enter your name here! simple enough, huh? also, check out all her cute items at this website.

happy shopping!

out of the loop

on sunday, while danny and i were up in layton celebrating natalie and julia's birthday's we discovered that we are SO out of the movie loop. we had absolutely no idea that this was coming out:

or this...

and we knew about this, but i am just so excited so i thought i'd put a little plug in for...

the bad thing is, we aren't huge movie go-ers, but it looks like this summer we are going to have to be.

any other movies that we are missing out on??

the weekend of love

it doesn't get much better than being able to spend a three day weekend with your sweetheart. no work. no school. not a care in the world. BUT what makes it even better is when your sweetheart plans everything! this past weekend, i really didn't have to worry about a thing. and boy was that wonderful! our valentines day weekend was definitely one to remember...and this is why:

saturday morning we woke up, packed, and headed to shirley's bakery to pick up some cinnamon rolls for sunday morning's breakfast. then we got on the freeway and headed south (i still had no idea where we were going at this time, but i was hoping it was manti...) and sure enough when we got to the manti exit, danny turned! we got married in the manti temple almost six months ago and i never have been able to do a session there before, so valentines day was the perfect day to do it. the weather was beautiful, the workers were so cute and nice, and the spirit was so strong. i love going to the temple. especially manti.

after our temple session, we went to our favorite little three-in-one restaurant. they have pasta, pizza, and the cutest little ice cream parlor we've ever been to. we had a delicious meal and then got back on the road...(from here on out i had NO clue what danny had up his sleeve.)

we then drove another mile south to a teeny, tiny little town called teasdale, utah. yup, pretty sure i never ever knew this town existed. we pulled up around seven o' clock and the whole town was already shut down. we finally stopped at these cute little cabins--pine shadows to be exact--and there was a little note posted on the office door that said, "mckinley--cabin #3. the door is open, keys are on the table, make yourselves at home!" so we took all our stuff into our cute little cabin and unpacked, when we noticed that all the food we had packed for dinner had somehow gotten left on our kitchen table! we weren't too worried about it at the time, because we weren't too hungry so we started "return to me"--which i have never seen before! best valentine's day movie ever! around nine i was starting to get super hungry so we decided to set out and search for food. we drove around for about twenty minutes...no luck. finally, we saw a subway sign in the distance but when we pulled up there was no one to be found! i seriously have no idea how anyone in those small little towns get food. we never once passed a grocery store! it made me so grateful to live in provo. at around 9:30 we spotted a sign for "sandstone inn" and somehow beneath it in tiny letters i saw "restaurant and motel." we drove up the hill and finally found the restaurant, but to our dismay it said it closed at nine. we were having the worst luck! but since it was valentines day, and we were starrrrrrrrrrving we decided to run in (luckily the doors were still open) and beg them to feed us. once inside, we felt like we had stepped back in time; everyone seemed to know everyone, and it was the smallest little diner. but they kindly gave us a table and told us we could start dishing up at the salad bar. we ordered their malibu chicken, and we definitely should have asked them what was on it before ordering. they smothered horseradish all over the grilled chicken--so i mostly ate from the salad bar and the fries that came with it. but the apple pie for dessert made up for it. we returned home with full stomachs and then star gazed for a while because the sky was completely FILLED with millions of stars. it was incredible.


sunday morning we woke up bright and early and danny made me breakfast in bed and then we reluctantly packed up and checked out. we went to church in richfield, but before leaving the wonderful town of teasdale, we had to get a picture of the weirdest church building we have ever seen! we think it was just used as a cultural hall but still...

we made it home sunday night and still had president's day to enjoy! i am so grateful for my wonderful husband who made this weekend possible.

best valentines day ever.

gus gus returns...

so remember in my last post when i said we have too many mice?? unfortunatly i wasn't just referring to our first visitation from gus gus #1. turns out gus gus has a brother. and he's a little quicker than his sibling. two weeks ago danny and i had a SUPER late night. he was out partying with his buddies (they were throwing a bachelor party for elliot) and so i decided to go hang out with the fam (since i hate being home alone). once we finally were home for the night, i was starving so i poured myself a bowl of cereal and was eating it on our bed. danny was in the kitchen. this is what happened next:

danny: OH MY GOSH (screaming from the kitchen)
jessie: what??
(and then i saw it. a tiny little furry creature dart into the bathroom and around the edge of the sink.)
jessie: EEEEW. (as i spilled the milk from my cereal ALL over the bed)
danny: let's trap it in the bathroom--i'll get him once we're done eating

now that you have that nice mental imagery. get this. five minutes later danny went in with a broom and a box ready to kill. until he started yelling again saying, "it's not in here!" yeah. turns out we have a hole right behind our toilet that neither of us have ever noticed before.

i have nightmares still.

virtual tour: part one

many of our friends who live away from us have wanted to see pictures of our humble little home. we are still very much in the process of getting it exactly how we'd like it...but by the time that rolls around we will probably have moved! as for now, i've captured the first front three rooms to give you all a feel of what our home is like! (the bedroom and our living room will be posted shortly...they are still in the process of either a) being clean for a period longer than ten minutes or b) being completely ready to show to the public. until then i found a couple other pictures of our backroom that i took when we first moved in. it looks a tiny bit different now. i'm just wetting your palate for more pictures to come.

the layout of our home is slightly strange. after walking up a steep flight of stairs, you get to our front door. from there you enter into a super ghetto entryway (sorry no pics)...and THEN you enter our kitchen! the picture above is what you see once you walk into the kitchen.


danny helped me make the corkboard above the sink. he is the greatest! we still need to put pictures up but it adds a nice touch.

our spacious bathroom that we love.



our backroom/living room. one day we'll have a normal place where the living room is the first room you enter. but we love our unique little home. it is PERFECT for us! (minus all the mice!)