One of the Joys of Pregnancy

Warning: Do not view this if you think feet are gross or get queasy easily.

So last year for Christmas all I wanted was a pair of boots. Well actually two pairs of boots. And Danny got me both pair I wanted: one black and one brown. I wore my brown ones ALL the time! Last night Danny and I went to a show and I wore them again. I had to take them off during the play because my feet were hurting. But I zipped them back up on the ride home. I took them off when I got home and this is what I found..



My feet got all swollen and took the shape of the waves and rolls in my boots. And this is after only about an hour of wearing them.



Notice the indents around my ankles. These boots used to be loose around my ankles and calves.

I know these pictures aren't pretty.. but they are pretty dang incredible! I didn't think I could swell up so much. I'm just really really sad because I love those boots and I won't be able to wear them this winter. I might have to call my mom and ask if I can borrow her birkenstock sandals because even my "loose" shoes are getting to tight.

Viva Las Vegas

Last weekend Danny and I went and stayed with my family in St. George and then went to spend the next day in Vegas to celebrate our anniversary. We had a ton of fun! But we are poor mormon kids so we didn't do the typical vegas stuff like gambling and going to tons of shows and stuff. We just walked the strip and looked at all of the cool stuff and went to the bodies exhibit.


My cute purse I got for my birthday from Danny. And my ma and pa gave me money and I bought some cute boots with it.


Reed became obsessed with the "homeboy rapist" guy so he went and dressed up like him and sang the song all day long :) Love that kid.

1 yr down!!

Today is my one year anniversary with Danny. Everyone says the first year is the hardest, and Danny and I both agree that if that is true then we're gonna have the best marriage ever!! It's true that being married isn't the easiest thing in the world and we definitely had to learn some things. But overall I think it has pretty much been the best year of my entire life.

Here are some things about Danny that I absolutely love...
1.) He is such a gentleman. He always opens my doors for me and carries my things for me.
2.) He helps me cook, clean, do the laundry, etc.
3.) He ALWAYS gets us to the temple.
4.) He is really funny and can make me laugh at anything.
5.) He tells me he loves me every single day.

Fighting Evil Jerks All Over the World!

Todays post is brought to you by Danny. My wife is absolutely amazing. Obviously. But last night she really just made me explode with pride. Some of the guys on my soccer team were getting warmed up and their ball hit one of the guys on the other team. Well he was a total bum about it. He swore and threatened to beat up my team mate. Well the ball rolled towards him a second time and he moved out of the way so that the ball would just roll away. Then he just started talking crap about my teammates and being really mean. I was shooting goals so I was oblivious to all of this happening but my sweet wife Ari was there listening to this guy be a jerk. So what does she do? She walks over and taps him on the shoulder and says excuse me, but I don't appreciate hearing you say such mean things could we just drop it please? The guy was taken aback obviously but he wasn't about to be told off by a woman. So he shoots back, why is he or husband or something? Ari was like no, I just don't appreciate hearing you talk crap (understand Ari's heart was pounding like crazy when she told me exactly what happened so this isn't word for word but the idea is the same). It was funny cuz the kid looked really retarded for a second. Kind of like when an elementary kid thinks up a stupid come back that doesn't work and then he is confused for a second as he tries to think of a second come back. Yeah, that totally happened to that kid. So after a second all he could think of was, yeah, well I don't care what you do or don't appreciate. Real classy homo. First of all you shouldn't be mean to a girl and second of all you shouldn't be mean to a pregnant girl. Lastly he was lucky I wasn't around to hear him disrespect my wife. Anyways it was awesome because my wife totally stood up to this kid being a jerk. And he was so confused to find out that Ari wasn't even standing up for her husband, she just didn't want to hear this guy be a jerk. The best part was that the jerks wife was there and she was obviously so ashamed of her husband's jerkiness. She just looked so awkward. And then his teammates came up to Ari and were like, we are totally on your side. It was awesome. So anyone who is thinking of being a jerk better make sure that my wife Ari Hallows Bond isn't around cuz she doesn't put up with that crap. Hats off to you babe. You are so hot.

We are having a girl! I couldn't be more excited! Danny is a little less excited because he doesn't know what girls are like. but he is still very excited :) we both feel extremely blessed and overwhelmed at the same time, but we're happy to finally know our baby's gender!

Baby Bump and My Mountain Man

Danny has been growing his hair out all summer and it is SOO long!!! It gets super curly and big when he wants it to. It's kind of funny. I will admit that I'm a little bit sad that he will have to cut it when school starts. But I had to document it.









And here is my baby bump at 16 1/2 weeks

Bon Appetite!

Saturdays can get pretty boring for me because Danny is at work all day. So today I decided to make some homemade raviolis because I've always wanted to try making homemade pasta and I knew it would kill some time during the afternoon. I was pretty skeptical at first because I'm extremely unlucky in the kitchen, but these raviolis were delicious! I was so proud of myself :) Here is how to make them...

3 c flour
5 egg yolks
salt to taste
water

First put all of the flour on a flat surface (I just used my table). Make a little well in the middle and put all of the egg yolks in the well. Start mixing with your hand. It will be VERY dry with awkward egg clumps at first but just keep mixing. Add TINY bits of water as you go. I just had a pan of luke warm water next to me and would cup a little bit and put it in the dough. Keep adding little bits of water and kneading! When it finally starts looking like dough time yourself and knead for about 10 minutes or until you think it looks good. Roll it into a little ball and cover with a clean towel. Let it sit for 20 minutes.

While the dough is sitting, make your filling for the ravioli. You can experiment with this part. I just mixed some ricotta cheese with grated parmesan cheese. Make sure you don't use that nasty parmesan powder crap... it won't work. You can use a bag of shredded parmesan, or even better, grate a block yourself. If you have never cooked with ricotta cheese then taste it real quick. It's pretty bland and not very good... you can see that you'll want more parmesan than ricotta in the mixture. You can add mushrooms, spinach, meat, etc! Also add salt to taste.

After the dough is done sitting, cut off a piece that's a little bit bigger than a golf ball. Roll it out using a rolling pin. Keep rolling until it's paper thin. Don't get lazy and use super thick dough :) Keep cutting off chunks of dough and rolling them out until it's all rolled out. Use a cup or cookie cutter and cut out your pieces. Put about a teaspoon of the cheesy filling on one piece and go around the edges with some mixed up egg (this will help the pieces stick together). Put the other piece of dough on top and smash the edges with a fork. Do this to all of your ravioli. When you are done, you can either freeze the ravioli, or cook it right away! This recipe will make about 36 ravioli and will take a couple of hours. Get your husband or children to help you and it will go by faster. Even though it's more work and takes longer than boiling store bought ravioli, I promise it's worth it! It's fun to see that you can actually create things and it tastes better. No nasty freezer taste!


I used about 1 1/4 c ricotta and a small bag of parmesan cheese. You can see how much of the filling I actually used!





Here are some more options you can do with the ravioli:

* make steak to go with it
* saute mushrooms to put on top
* make a Parmesan crusted pork to go with it
* make shrimp to go with it
* use simple spaghetti sauce and get some meatballs for it

Cowboyin' it Up

This past week Danny, my little brother Reed, and I were able to go to Danny's grandparents ranch in New Mexico. We did a lot of fun things like driving cattle to a new pasture, branding, cooking, playing cards, and just catching up with everyone. Reed had a GREAT time because this is something that he has never done before. I wasn't able to do a lot of the ranching stuff because I'm pregnant, but I sure had fun watching everyone!









Grandad is rounding up a cow to brand it.



Reed was the bucket boy :) He loved running up to the cow and catching the balls as Danny cut them out haha.



Danny would trap the cow in the Nordfork (occasionally he would miss the head and have to just tackle the cow) and then everyone else would run in and give the cow shots and brand it all at once. Then Danny would cut off the sacks and balls and give it to the little boys to collect and cut the ear so that we could tell which cows have been done.



Danny had to tackle this one



Gran was so hardcore. She would march up to the cow, put her foot on it, and stick the hot brand into its skin. It was pretty cool to watch.



This cow was a BIG one whose balls had already dropped. And of course this is the one that Danny missed with the Nordfork. So a couple of guys had to tackle it and he chopped the stuff off. Reed went to gather the goods and as he ran away from the cow he said "Those are the biggest oysters I've ever seen!" We all just about died laughing :) Good ol' Reed. After Danny took away his manhood, the cow got pretty mad and head butted him. He had a couple of fat lips for a little while.



Reed was also lucky enough to try riding a calf! He didn't last too long though.



Reed felt really cool when he got the cow's blood on him.





Everyone kept asking Reed if he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. His answer was, "I already am a cowboy!"



This pic was taken right before Grandad's horse, Kid, went crazy on us. Danny and I took Reed out to ride the horse a little bit and while he was riding it started to rain. We were quite a ways away from the house and when it started raining Kid freaked out and started running home. We yelled at Reed to stop him and he yelled back "I'm trying!" Before we knew it, Kid was in a full gallop trying to get home and Reed was just holding on for dear life! I was so scared. I yelled at Danny to go run after him but he said there was no way he could catch a running horse (Danny and I were just on foot). So I had to stand there and watch this horse run off with my little brother. Reed stayed really calm though and just held on for dear life. When we were walking back to the house we realized that the horse also jumped over a ditch. I couldn't believe that Reed got to ride a galloping horse and jump a ditch with him. Grandad wasn't too happy about Kid running off but everyone thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I was scared out of my mind but it was still really funny to watch Reed on that running horse.





Gran fries up the cow balls after branding and has everyone eat them. Reed ate about four of them. I ate a piece of one on a big chip with salsa and just about threw up as it went down. It didn't taste bad, but the thought of eating rocky mountain oysters makes me sick ha.



We went shooting and Reed was the best shot out of us all.





This is Grandad's super nice cowboy hat :)



Danny had to put on Grandad's hat for a picture.

We had a TON of fun at the ranch and the family reunion this year. Reed was a blast. He was such a good helper and he got to do a lot of cool things. Danny's family is incredible. They are some of the nicest and most giving people I have ever met. I can't wait until next years reunion!!