I now realize why it is called a belly "button"

My whole life I had and 'innie' then I became pregnant and my bellybutton gradually started to pop out. For awhile it resembled a nose, but now, it is definitely a button. The only thing Tyler likes more than grabbing my whole stomach and shaking it, is pushing the "belly button".
So we have been getting these pregnancy e-mails since like August. Every week they email you and say congratulations you are x-weeks pregnant and your baby is about the size of a (fruit or vegetable you have never heard of that come in a wide variety os sizes). This week at 30 weeks, we finally got a vegetable that not only we recognize, but that sounds about right. A Cabbage. So for all of you who haven't seen us lately my stomach is the size of a pumpkin with a cabbage inside of it. Not a large pumpkin, or a small one, a mediumish round one.
Throughout the pregnancy Tyler has been reading to me, because we like to read. Lately, whenever we relax and Tyler starts to read out loud, baby girl Brady has started moving around and kicking a lot. I noticed because it comes out of nowhere after stretches of no movement time. I would like to think it is her responding to her daddy's voice and that even in the womb she is bonding with her father,sappy things like that, but who knows.
I think I have also stumbled upon the realization that attitude really does effect everything. Since New Years Tyler and I have being trying extra hard to stay positive, happy and as stress free as possible. We are trying to read our scriptures more and serve one another instead of being selfish. We have been doing pretty darn good, especially the last little bit, and I don't think it is a coincidence that about that same time, my back, tailbone pain and heartburn have lessened dramatically. The end of December I never thought I would make it to March alive and still teaching. Now I ALMOST feel like a human being again, more or less.
Tyler and I have been released as primary teachers. This is exciting and scary because we were in the ward for about a week when we got called, and so the last year I have been to relief society about 3 times. Here we are relatively establish members of the ward, and no one knows us. We almost got called on to stand up and introduce ourselves as visitors last week. I was very ready to be released from Primary, but now I miss the security of it, and all our little friends.

Thanksgiving Anniversary

This was as close as we got to Rocky MT National Park on our way to Denver. A reason why it pays off to actually plan a trip before you take it.


Any season of the year, Tyler is drawn to water.





Tyler and I in the foreground at Grandpas Asay's "office" There he is in the background, one arm covered in cow manure. He is a vet, who pregnancy tests cows.

A Picture is worth 1000 words

Pictures from our Trip to Montana in August to help with the fair.

Some Waterfall in Yellowstone National Park that Tyler would not keep away from the edge of.


Tyler made friends with a chipmunk at the top of the Beartooth Pass on the Montana Wyoming border. We played with this little guy for about 10 minutes.


One of Tyler's proudest moments: He finally caught the Rooster on the Asay farm. Unfortunatly we didnt get a picture of the baby chick he caught after stalking it for about 20 minutes.


Tyler taught the largest sheep (the one with budding horns) to head butt. We have video of it, but I cant figure out how to post it.


Here we are at the Continental Divide in Yellowstone. The water from Isa lake drains to both the atlantic and pacific oceans. Hence, the 'divide'.
Thanks to my great photoshop skills, we dont have to worry about finding people to take our pictures on vacation. Tyler took one of me and I took one of him and then sewed them together!


On our way to Montucky there was a few forest fires, here is the sunset in the smoke. It was a lot reder and cooler in person.


Tyler in Isa lake.


Tyler in the Yellowstone River


Kristen on Sheepeater cliffs in Yellowstone.

Living life on the edge

The last couple of weeks the little short street by our house, 200 E I believe, has been closed for construction. The city finally decided to widen it so that a turn lane would be implemented and hopefully better direct traffic. Since moving to the cave we have discovered that everyone likes to use our street as a short cut. They all speed way over the 25 mph limit and so there are always tons of cops patrolling. None the less, EVERYONE still speeds.
It has almost been nice to hear the sounds of concrete being ripped up and poured instead of screeching tires and horns blaring. This happens because the people turning on to our street from 200 E assume that the cars they are trying to cut off, are going the speed limit. As I am sure everyone knows it is a much different experience to pull out in front of a car going 25 mph, and a car going 35 mph. This leads to angry horn honking drivers who have to slow down to the real speed limit, as not to rear-end the people pulling out in front of them.
Today was the first day that our road was reopened after construction. I left for school and all was right with the world. I come home from school, and in the few short hours I was gone, someone drove their car through our upstairs neighbors mailboxes and yard. This is no simple task I assure you. You see, our mailboxes are crap, and so they are reinforced a few times with metal beams in the ground. To destroy the corner of the fence and take out two mailboxes and stands like that, is just impressive, especially at that odd angle.
I figure what happened (judging by the skid marks, and how traffic works on our street) is that a silly car decided to pull onto our street in front of a speeding vehicle. Seeing at the last second that they were going to be hit by the speeding vehicle, they tried to bail across all lanes into the neighbors big dirt driveway, not quite making it.

The avocado has a gender!

Today Tyler and I finally cashed in on my Uncle Mark's continuous offers of an ultrasound. He is an radiologist (guy who reads x-rays) and works at a few different clinics with ultrasound machines. So this morning on our way to the doctors office we ran to macey's and bought a video tape because apparently you can record with these things!
Because we were the mooching college students waiting for their free medical visit from the uncle, we had to wait around for about an hour, but it was so worth it! My uncle is a pretty funny guy and everyone he worked with was real nice. The video it's self was so cool! We got to see the little kid squirming all over the place and grabbing at it's toes! It made everything so exciting all over again! Now I know that the avocado sized thing in my belly is a cute little human being! We saw the heart beat and the brain and the face and arms and feet and everything!
I don't think either of us really cared what it was (male or female), I was just glad to find out it was not twins. We are having a baby girl though! The first granddaughter on either side of the family, and the first grandchild on my side. Tyler is very excited and so am I! I think my class at school will be sad that we will not be naming it Thomas Jefferson Brady (the name they picked out for it).

Living one day at a time

Tyler and I are both a month into school and the exhaustion is showing. Poor Tyler had to quit his job at the ER because with that, the shop, and school he never had time for homework or rest, let alone fun. He is really sad because he really loved that job.
I sincerly hope our child gets the good half of both of our brains. Not to say that Tyler is bad at history and art, but I barely passed college biology 101 with a C, and I dont think I understood a word of it. Tyler just got a 98% on his first Test, he only missed one question.
I am starting to get a handle on the kids in my class, I think. It is so hard to be the happy cheerful patient teacher, but I am trying sooooooo hard. While I no longer feel "sick" at school, I am now experiencing a new wonder of my changing body. My tail bone has hurt for two days straight and I feel like an old woman when I try to stand up and sit down. Apparently this is common, even at 14 weeks, but I thought I'd have another 4 months or so before the back pain would start. This only feeds Tyler and his father's theory that I'm having twins. At 14 weeks apparently our child is the size of a lemon, but I feel like i've got a whole bushel of them sitting on my tail bone.
We bought a new couch! Actually two corner pieces of a lazyboy that we pushed together to make a half circle. It is sooooo compfortable, but huge and dorky looking. We also traded in the old dryer that left brown streaks on all our clothes and got a new one. YaY!
I'm having a hard time feeling young and I think Tyler feels the same. I'm always exhausted and lucky if I can stay awake past 9pm. With work and school Tyler never has time for adventures, and we have sadly sort of drifted away from friends our own age. I think we are both living for the spring, while trying to enjoy each day. Tyler will get his Associates degree, I'll get the lemon out of my stomach, and hopefully we can feel human agin.