{pay it forward}

I've seen this on several people's blogs. Is it weird that sometimes I see this and choose not to make a comment because I feel bad for being the first person to comment and think that someone else deserves a suprise more than I do... well that's happened at least twice already, but today I finally realized the whole point of this is to PAY IT FORWARD. I deserve a gift and I want to have an excuse to give some gifts away! You deserve a gift too...

rules: "the 1st three people to leave a comment on this post will receive at some point during this year a handmade gift from me. If you don't live by me, leave me your e-mail address in a comment. What the gift will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise! The catch is that you must participate as well. Before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then come back and let me know you are going to play, and sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift. Remember only the 1st three will qualify. Good Luck!!!"

Why the wait?

We've had some friends asking us why we waited so long to tell the news, and I guess besides the fact that we didn't have our first docs appointment until I was 12 weeks and a little part of me didn't believe I was really pregnant until I saw that little bean jumping around... we didn't tell Brady's parents until I was 13 weeks (so we told them 2 days before spilling it on the blog). We do hope no one was hurt or offended that we didn't call them personally or tell them in person, because we honestly have only told family up to this point (and I announced it in RS because I was afraid I might be getting a little chubby and that could just be awkward). The real explanation is in the last 2 paragraphs of this post, feel free to skip down...

If your bored and you want to read on about how we told each of our family members please feel free! I keep a blog called "letters to my baby" where I've been (obviously) writing letters to my baby about special events (like when I found out I was pregnant, the first docs appointment, etc). I'm not a scrapbooker, and although I hope maybe one day I could be, that day is not today, and I need a way to document special things for my baby. I am a blogger, so this was just the easiest for me. Here is a long excerpt:

"Dad and I had spent several nights talking and imagining fun ways to tell family members about you (you'll see its just our nature to want to do things in a fun and memorable way, especially when its something so special). I just couldn't wait, and told my parents (Grammy & Grampy Asay) on the phone when I was about 7 weeks. I just had too many questions and needed to talk to someone.I hope when you need to talk to someone about anything (good or bad) you'll just come talk to us!

The next people I told were my sisters (Aunt Sarah and Aunt Carrie), at Griffy's 2nd b-day. Dad was away in Washington DC for a health advocacy summit, and Uncle Eric and Uncle Brad were also away, so we 3 girls spent the night together. I broke the news to them and we stayed up and talked all night. I think I was about 9 weeks.

I sent letters to Aunt Kjirsten's family and Uncle Mike's family around the same time.

After going to the first doctor's appointment (12 weeks), we were too excited and just HAD to tell someone else. We decided to go tell Aunt Danee since I really did need to tell her that I would be 5 months pregnant at her wedding (and she was looking for bridesmaid dresses). We went to eat at Panda express and decided to put our own fortune in the fortune cookie and give it to her:

That Saturday we told Uncle Ry and Aunt Steph with the little onesie for cousin Avery that we had so much fun making! We went over just to visit and hang out with them, and then slipped this onesie on Avery when they weren't looking :) When they went to check on her, they had this little suprise waiting for them:

And a week later, it was finally time to tell Grandma and Grandpa Hansen! We didn't originally plan to wait this long to tell them, but the more we thought about it(and we thought of several different ways to tell them), we really thought it would be so fun to be able to tell them in person. When we had officially decided to wait to tell them in person, we knew we couldn't tell anyone else for awhile either, because we didn't want any news getting to them too early :) Grandma and Grandpa Hansen (and aunt Hay) came into town, so we surprised (more like shocked) them with the news!

It was G&G's 28th anniversary and they had just come in the night before for spring break. That beautiful Saturday morning (it really was the last beautiful bright sunny day before a storm came in) we made them a fun anniversary breakfast...

chatted and got caught up, and then gave them an anniversary card. This is part of what it said inside:

We put the ultrasound picture of you inside the card. They had to open it, and were completely not expecting it, but were soooo excited to hear the news! Grandma just started crying, she just loves you so much :) I was 13 weeks (almost 14) when we told them.

Once we told them, we were finally free to tell all our friends. I began to try and call everyone, but Grammy Asay was anxious for me to get the news up on the blog so that she could start telling all of her friends! I decided I couldn't wait any longer and figured that putting it on the blog would make the news travel a lot faster than calling one by one, and lets face it, I'm pregnant and took the faster easier route!

You should know by now that you have so many people that are looking forward to your arrival, and just can't wait to meet you! We ALL love you so very much already!"

and then there were 3...

As some of you already know, WE'RE PREGNANT!

I would have loved to be able to tell every single one of you in person, but I can't wait one second longer to announce this exciting news! Now that both families know, we can finally announce it to the world! I am 14 weeks today!!! Already into the second trimester and feeling good! Here is our cutest baby at 12 weeks:

We couldn't be more thrilled!

Happy first day of Spring!

It makes me happy when google does something special for a special day...

This is their Spring creation:

Happy Spring! Go have a picnic!

lately i'd rather play outside...

The weather has been a delight lately, and I can't seem to get enough of it. We've been able to pick up our tradition of going on an evening stroll together now that we have weather staying in the upper 50s and 60s and all the snow has completely melted.


Yesterday we went left instead of right and we found a whole new little field where we had a beautiful view of the mountains and could see the Provo Temple, the Y, and LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Enjoy the weather while you can! A little birdie told me its supposed get cold this weekend.

Looking for a good summer job?

or if you're not looking for a job but know someone who is, send them to me!

I am currently looking for a paperwork/office assistant for the summer (opportunity to continue work and be promoted at the end of the summer, as I will be leaving) as the volume of paperwork will increase infinitely come the end of April...

This is a 100% flexible job, you can set your own hours and choose how many hours you want to work a week, but must be between 25-40 hrs a week (so if you want a full time job it can be, if your looking for not quite full time we can make that work too)! The office is open from 9am to 10pm and you can choose any hours in that time period that you want to work (for example, right now I come into work at 12 everyday because I have class in the morning).



The company: Linx Satellite is a retailer for Dish Network and Direct TV, and as of recently started offering internet and voip phone service.

The job: This position would simply help me keep track of all paperwork for Dish, Direct, and Voip phone. Get all the ppwk processed in our system, and scan and fax all the ppwk to DISH and VOIP. There will be multiple out of state offices and hundreds of guys selling this stuff every day, which means thousands and thousands of contracts. Pay is negotiable.

I'm gonna be honest and say that this is a pretty low stress job and a really laid back fun office. The only stressful thing is going to be the volume of ppwk, which is why we are hiring a second person. We are looking for someone who will work hard and get the job done! It will be a fun summer, plus you will get to hang out with me all day :)

Please let me know if you are interested so we can get an interview set up asap! Email your resume to taryn@linxsatellite and feel free to ask any questions you have.

For more info go here.

I'm boring...

I haven't posted in a while. I feel like I'm falling off the blogging train. But don't worry, I'll always be back. I can't stay away for long.

Here are some peanut butter chocolate chip muffins I made a few days ago. You must be thinking "LAME". This is all I have to blog about. Sorry. Recipe from Annie's Eats that I keep hearing about!

These are really good and I think this website is great and yummy, but I've just come to the realization that I don't love chocolate chips in muffins. But don't worry, I still ate almost all of them by myself. I justified my actions by thinking that it would be kind of mean to give something that I didn't really love away to other people.

I'm going to try the apple cranberry oatmeal muffins next. Don't those sound delish!

Other delicious eats from annie:
-Blackberry vanilla cupcakes
-Honey yogurt waffles
-plus 1 million other things

DC 2

ok, this should wrap up the rest of the DC trip...it was really a dream trip so if you havent been yet, you should go...now! Some of the other highlights of the trip were: 1 going to the top of the Washington monument (pics of that in the slide show) It was a unique time because they were draining and cleaning out the reflecting pools. 2 Seeing all the monuments; they are huge! 3 My favorite thing was running over to the Supreme Court between meetings and being able to go in while they were in session! You couldnt bring anything, at all, in the room and it was probable the most solemn place ive been outside the temple. 4 touring the capitol building was really cool too. We were lucky enough to even get a tour of the gallery where the senate and house met both, which was cool to see in person.
there were so many other fun little things we were able to do like, Chinatown, 2 B-Ball games, meeting with Congress people, riding the metro etc...but Ill let the pictures tell the stories!

The Vietnam Memorial--------the Hiroshima Memorial---------The Washington Monument

The White House--------------The Capitol

The National Archives ---------- The Supreme Court ----------- The Library of Congress

The Pentagon

Washington D.C.

Well, if you don't know by now that I'm pretty horrible at posting anything on here, then I'd just like to invite you look back and figure out the ratio of my posts to Taryns...its about 1:999...But I'd be pretty sad if I didnt throw together a little somethin' about my recent DC trip to look back on, so I decided to take it in chunks and write a few things at a time...starting, now!

Early morning, Provo.
My sweet lil lady drove me to the airport at what should be considered night, but is technically morning to fly out to DC. (a special thanks to ry and steph for arranging our sleepover at stephs moms house in draper to buy us a little more sleep time...) We had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Minneapolis, so we had some time to grab some breakfast and ride their monorail...thats a huge airport! We finally made it to DC that evening at 5:30 DC time and took the Metro (their public transportation) straight to our Hotel at L'enfant Plaza. What a cool hotel! As you can see, we had a balcony with a view of the Washington monument and capitol building, etc...so cool. I had already decided I wanted to go see the monumnets right away, so we unpacked and hit the Mall. It was really cool to see at night...we saw the Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson that night, along with the world war II and Vietnam memorials...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Early Morning, Arlington.
We woke up at 7 this morning to take in some sights before our 8:30am Conference. One thing I knew I really couldn't miss was the changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetary's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (Tare had told me all about this before I left and it was one of her "must see's, so I really didnt want to miss out!)
Lucky for me, I had a good group that shared my sense of urgency and priorities when it came down to a choice between sleep and experiencing the cool history of the good ol USA. We really didnt regret getting up that day! We showed up just in time to jog up the hill to the area of the Tomb and actually see the entire changing of the guard-so cool! There is a great sense of patriotism, respect and gratitude felt by everyone who see's this amazing ceremony and the reverence of the guards on duty. It really was a must see.

And now, I have to get to class, but more to come later...