Sorry Steven, but I'm in love with another man

This has become my most favorite face in the whole world. Whenever I close my eyes, this is what I see. I can't even say how much I love this little guy. Dexter is so sweet and so content. He cries when he's hungry, fusses when he's tired or getting his diaper changed and cries during tummy time. All the rest of the time he's so perfect and pretty easy to take care of.


One of his non-crying moments of tummy time.

His first at home bath. He looks like a little ewok!

This was just yesterday when he was completely zonked out on the floor.

4 days left! But probably more.

So my pictures are in no particular order here but oh well. I wanted to add this picture of my niece because every time I look at it I laugh. She looks so crazy and I love it!
This is one of the few pictures I've ever been able to get of Guster looking right at the camera without an owl-like glow in his eyes. He'd been sleeping on one of the baby blankets I left draped over the banister to dry after washing. I'm hoping he's realizing what's going on and adjusting. He loves to look into the crib and carseat and sniff all the clean baby clothes.
This was just a couple weeks ago, I can't remember when exactly, but that's a little smaller than I am right now.
I needed practice on diapers and this teddy bear was my volunteer. I am pro at diapering stuffed animals now. I here the real thing is a bit trickier, but we'll see.
My diaper bag. I got it all packed up tonight with extra everythings and baby's coming home outfit. Hopefully it fits him or he'll be coming home naked!
Since we only have around 4 days until baby boy makes his appearance, we decided it might be time to organize his room a bit. This is just a glimpse of how it started.
This is it in the end looking much nicer. We don't have all the furniture or bedding just yet, but all his clothes are organized and clean, no trash left on the floor, and nice and tidy. We got the bassinet all set up in our room yesterday and I've been surprised not to find Guster snoozing in it yet. We're getting pretty excited to meet this boy of ours! I can't wait for the day of labor to be done with and I can just be a mom.

Pizza and apartments

Steven and Eric decided to try out the Fox's Pizza challenge of eating an entire 30" pizza in 1 hour between the two of them. If accomplished, the winners get a free large pizza every week for a year.



This is no easy feat and not for the faint of heart, or stomach.

Unfortunately, they didn't quite make it. Steven ended up throwing up the last couple slices he ate. But he does what to try again sometime. He doesn't take personal defeat well!
And in other Yeip news, we moved! We got to the point where we realized it would be easier to move than to try and clean that old house we lived in. So we found this nice 3 bed, 2.5 bath townhouse for rent and jumped at the chance. It was a very spur of the moment type of thing but we're really loving living here. I have a dishwasher for the first time since I was 19, so that's great! We have a 2 car garage, even though we only have 1 car. It's so nice not to have to scrape our car off in the morning and to not have to run the car for a while to get some heat going! I already don't know how we lived for this long without these amenities!
This is our kitchen, (obviously)
Dining area with Guster
and our living room. The living room is really small which is pretty much the only downfall of this place, but we made it work for us. All the bedrooms are still messy from the move so I don't have pictures of those. We have a nice huge master bathroom with a shower we can actually stand up in which is great. There's also 2 walk in closets for us! Guster has his own bathroom so it's great not to have to smell kitty litter every time I walk in to get some clothes. We're working on getting the nursery set up. We got a great deal on a crib (which in Steven's eyes was still too much money) which is still sitting in our garage but we're excited that in just one month we'll have a reason to have all this stuff!

Houses of Center Street

Steven and I live in right by the "historic" part of Logan. There are some really beautiful houses that line Center Street and over the summer, Steven and I took a walk and took some pictures of the nice ones. I really love houses. I'm always looking at what's for sale around here and I sometimes look at what's for sale in Ithaca area, in Maine and in Oregon as those are all my favorite places. But here are some of the more lovely homes of Logan:






This little house Steven and I looked into renting but by the time I got a hold of the landlord, it was already taken. It was quite cute on the inside with hard wood floors, lots of windows and cute built in cupboards and shelves.

This place looks so out of place in Utah. I think it belongs more in Florida what with the Spanish Tiled roof and stucco siding.







I really just love how this house is covered in cobblestone instead of siding or brick. So unique and cool.


And this is my favorite house in all of Logan. There's 3 different views of it here because it is just so immensely huge you can't really get the full essence of this house in just one picture.


The towers are so pretty and I love the nice huge wrap around porch.


There's several little balconies all around this place and some really nice features around the windows. I actually daydream about this house and always wonder what it's like on the inside. I'm sure it's full of wainscoating and crowned molding and I bet there's some really nice fireplaces. I would love it if one of those rooms with a tower on it is a library where you can sit in the circular area with a really comfy chair, a lamp, and a great book. This house is owned by the Needham family and anyone who's ever lived in Logan knows who they are. They're the jewelers where a lot of people buy engagement rings.
I definitely complain about Logan quite a bit about how cold it is, the wonderful inversion, the way it smells like kitty litter and cows, how they NEVER plow when it does snow, how bad the drivers are, and many other things, but these houses are something that I really do love here. I drive by them everyday on my way to and from work and I always look at them as I go by. So hopefully now you can like what I like about living here!

2010

Well, 2009 has come and gone and we're into a new year. I don't like winter once Christmas and New Year's is over; it's very depressing. It's cold and it's grey and the snow is hard. Everyone's lights are gone and trees are down. So here's just a couple pictures from our Christmas this year. The top one is our tree with all our presents, for each other and family, under it.
This is the tree at my in-laws house. We had a really nice Christmas Eve and Day there with the Yeips, sans Carl who is on his mission for another year. We did get to talk to him for a while on Christmas morning and it was fun to hear the difference the last year has made in him.
Micah, Heather, Meghan and Brendan all came up on Christmas day and stayed a couple days with us. It's so nice to have in-laws who can get along so well with my family that we can feel comfortable to spend holiday time all together. Micah and Steven took Meghan out and stuck her on an old snowboard and pushed her down the little slope in front of Steven's parents house. She's so cute in all her winter gear.
Steven's parents and sister Deneal getting breakfast ready Christmas morning.
On to other topics besides Christmas, I'm officially in my last trimester now. It's very scary to me that in just 3 more months I'll have a child. It's seemed kind of surreal. It only really hit me last week that we will actually have a baby and he's not going to just stay in there forever. I look forward to so much about becoming a mom, but I'm dreading the worrying about caring for him and the decisions he'll make one day and the kind of person he'll become. I'm counting on the fact that Steven and I have turned out alright that our kids will too.
Heather is only 6 weeks ahead of me and due next month. She's quite a bit smaller in the belly than I am though. I love that we're both having boys and so close together. Hopefully Baby Boy Howard and Baby Boy Yeip will be good friends one day!
Cousins together!

2009 was a good year overall. We had a couple good vacations including one to Oregon/Washington and one to California. I got pregnant, which is probably one of the bigger highlights. I lost my grandmother, but not in some tragic way at least. The nice thing about her passing was being able to be with all my family for a few days and see my cousins who I only see every once in a while. Steven and I fortunate enough to have great friends and great families who make our lives great. We also very fortunate to have each other and to be able to have this baby together. I look forward to 2010 and the new life that will be joining us this year. I think it'll be a great year!

More Christmas Time

My mom sent us a couple Christmas packages full of presents. This box was Guster's favorite present.

We made gingerbread houses with our friends and Coy's and the Olson's. Ours looks more like a gingerbread barn but I still really like it. Steven made the lovely thatched roof and the beautiful pine tree. He made it so there's a bunch of gummy bears dancing around the tree.



Friday evening we went to a Christmas party at our friend's Meg and Mike Suiter. I stole this picture from Jen Gibb who is the one on the floor so everyone can see all the friends and their baby boys. I'm glad that our little one will have 3 buddies all ready and waiting for him!

Christmas is All Around

I just love Christmas time. It's so beautiful and everything just feels a bit better. My mother-in-law have me her old tree so now I have a nice big pretty one instead of my ugly Wal-mart special. The bad thing about such a big tree is I don't have enough ornaments to decorate it with!

We went down to Temple Square the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Deneal flew into town so the whole family went to pick her up and after a good dinner at the Red Rock Cafe we went over to see the lights.




It's quite difficult to get a good picture of everyone, but this is Denise, Deneal, Gavin, Katie, Paul, Neal, and myself. No Steven.

Guster really loves Christmas too. He loves all the boxes full of decorations I get out and tries so hard to be sneaky and get inside them. You can barely see him in this picture peering through the tree branches. He doesn't seem to realize that the tree isn't real and always tries to eat it. He's also knocked off a bunch of ornaments and batted them around and shattered a few of them. I don't really mind on the little cheap ones; at least he's getting some exercise which he is in dire need of.

My living room this year. It's much less blurry in person.

Even though it is so cold outside right now, it's nice to have a warm little house to get all comfy in. This will more than likely be our last Christmas in this house. I like it a lot even though it doesn't hold the heat very well, the doors kind of stick, the carpets are all stained and worn out, there's big stains on the wallpaper in the kitchen, the toilet handle has to be lifted up after flushing, the countertops are just so very ugly and gross with a permanent dirtyness to them, and every once in a while it smells like old people. It's mine and Steven's first home together. We've had our first Christmas there and will be our baby's first home as well, even if it is for a short period of time. I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas in their homes everywhere!