[..tHe ViRdiCt..]

IT'S A BOY!!!


I can't believe that I am going to have another little guy running around the house! From the beginning I thought it would be a boy only because that's all the Larsen's know how to have. But when we saw his little man parts I couldn't help but be surprised! I always wanted a little girl, and a small (very small) part of me thought this might be my chance, but I am so happy that it is a little boy. Tatum will have a little buddy now and how convenient will it be now that I have everything I need!! I just have a few odds and ends to buy and a whole lot of work set ahead of us to prepare the nursery and pick a name! I was kind of hoping it would be a girl so that we wouldn't have to think up a boy name...if it were up to Tatum he would be named T-Rex after his favorite show Dinosaur Train.

Here are a few other shots, my favorite one is where he is showing off his muscles...check out those guns!


The whole time during the ultrasound the Doctor kept telling us how beautiful our baby was and even though its just an ultrasound I have to agree with her. It is so beautiful to see your healthy baby kicking inside of you...what a blessing!!

[..My Hobby..]

I'm pretty sure by now everyone knows that I LOVE photography. I seriously love it. I know that I may not have the best camera or accessories or that I haven't had any formal training, but it doesn't matter because I could spend everyday taking pictures! Well I have had a few friends and family asking me to take some pictures here and there and it has been so much fun for me. So here are some of my favorites from the past few weeks.

Right before Christmas I did this session for a close friend of ours. She wanted to surprise her Mother-in-Law with pictures of her kids for Christmas. These kids were the best! It took seriously 30 minutes (including driving) to get these pictures. They were perfect!!


My next session was done of my little nephew Kai. He is 4 months old and so adorable. I just love chunky babies...not that I would know what thats like :)


Finally last week I took these pictures of some kids in my Sister-in-Law's ward. Its such a sad story. Their Mom is in the hospital with cancer and really isn't doing very well. She can't even see her kids because if they have so much as a runny nose it could kill her. The sister's in the ward volunteered to watch her kids during the day and asked them to take pictures to put in a scrapbook for the Mom. I am so happy that I could do this for this family and hope that they will bring her even the slightest bit of joy. This family will be definitely be in my prayers!

[..BIG news people..]

We are finally ready to add on to our little family. It took us a while to get to this point, but we now feel totally ready to be a family of 4. I took Eric and Tatum to my first real Doctors apt and got to hear the heartbeat and I had to beg my Doc for an ultrasound. I guess they only do 12 week ultrasounds if they can't find the heartbeat. It was so cute to see Tatum react to the little guy (or gal) kicking and squirming around on that screen. She printed off 8 pictures and Tatum counted them and asked "you have 8 babies Mom?". Thank goodness there is only one in there! This little one will be due on July 11th which makes me 14 weeks along. Pregnancy really treats me well. With Tatum I never felt sick and had a perfect pregnancy. This time it is similar but my 1st trimester I was constantly nauseous. Never threw up, but still nauseous. Now I am out of my 1st trimester I feel great and am totally ready for this undertaking! Here is the proof...


We were so shocked to see it moving around so much. These two pics were taken literally seconds after each other. See it kicking? So cute!

I am so sorry to all of those that I blatantly lied to. I just wasn't ready to divulge my BIG secret yet.

[..Happy 2010..]

New Years this year was sort of low key. We usually do a huge party with tons of people and party all night long. Well this year most of our friends were either out of town or doing something else. We still wanted to do something, so we decided to do a small get together with a few close friends. We played some games like Rock Band and Apples to Apples and then watched the ball drop and cheered away 2009. We signed up on Direct Tv just for New Years so that we weren't lame and counting down to the microwave clock. We then had a few friends spend the night with us and woke up to hot chocolate and homemade pancakes. I really need to be better at taking pictures at our parties. This really was the only good one we got.


2009 came with a lot of ups and downs, but ended up being a great year. I have already set some goals that I think our family can really benefit from. I know that 2010 will be a great year and I have a lot of high hopes for this year.
Here is to 2010!

[..Christmas Day..]

This year was such an enjoyable Christmas for us! We were lucky to have a full house with every room filled to capacity. My sister Eryn flew in town the Sunday before Christmas and then my parents came on the 23rd. We also still have my older sister Elan and her family living in my basement....but only for a few more days as they will be moving into their new home this weekend!! It really is so fun to have so many people in one house for Christmas. So here is a look at our Christmas...

Tatum totally scored this Christmas, he got everything that he loves most. A train set...


and woody! Once he opened Woody, he pretty much forgot that anything else existed.

The way Bradley's do Christmas totally cracks me up. I think we kind of over do it :) Here is a before pic...

Notice there is no way to turn the tree on or off because there are presents stuffed in every possible spot.


and here is the aftermath. It looks like a tornado hit our house!


All of our neighbors have been talking about these big horned sheep that roam the hill tops around our neighborhood. We have never seen them before until Christmas Day. They were right around the corner from our house. We could have gotten out and touched them they were so close. Pretty cool.


We enjoyed Christmas dinner at my house.


I took charge of the table settings and made these cake pops as place settings. I still need to perfect the recipe, they were a little sweet for my taste, but at least they looked good!

After dinner we headed up to Eric's parents to open presents and have a sleep over. Grandma got all of the kids matching pjs. Aunt Bethany got some pjs to match, so we had to take a picture of her with her boys.


The kids then put on a show for us on the stage in the play room. It was so funny. Here is Tatum singing "I love Rock and Roll" while playing woody as his guitar! I wish I could put the video of it up, we were dying laughing.


We are so grateful to have so much family so close to spend Christmas with. It really is a blessing!

[..and the stockings were hung..]

I could hardly wait to put up Christmas this year! Right when we got back from Cali it was the FIRST thing I did. It is so exciting to be in a new home and celebrate our first Christmas together here. I just have to say that I love having a fireplace. It just adds so much to the warmth and feel of Christmas!

The other night Grandma Mary had all of the grand kids over to make graham cracker trains. Tatum's turned out so cute...I love it!


This year we started a new tradition, the Elf on the shelf! The Elf is Santa's little helper and was sent to keep an eye on the kids and then every night after the kids go to bed he travels back to the North Pole and reports to Santa. He comes back every morning before the kids wake up and hides in a different spot everyday until Christmas Eve. Tatum loves waking up and searching for the elf! It serves its purpose well, Tatum is so scared to step out of line while the Elf is watching.

Will the real MJ please stand up??

On Monday night we went with a bunch of friends to the Utah Flash Basketball game. We all got tickets for free and thought it would be a fun FHE. Well there was a rumor that Bryon Russell would be playing Michael Jordan at half time and his incentive was $100,000 donated to charity. Eric and I thought there is no way he would show up to D league basketball game in Provo, Utah. Well we got there and all of Utah County was there, I think there was about 7,500 people. At half time the lights go out and they start to play videos of M.J. and a spot light comes on. Bryon Russell walks out on the floor and starts asking for Michael Jordan. Everyone had hope that he was going to show up. A few moments later a group of body guards walk out "Michael Jordan". It was very clear that this guy wasn't really Michael. Russell calls the guy out as an impostor and pretty much says forget this I'm going home. The lights go on and he walks out. That was it! They played it up like Jordan was going to be there the whole time and then scammed all of Utah County! It was pretty funny, everyone stood there in shock not knowing what just happened.

(Here we are with Jessica and Mike, Mike's brother and wife, and Brooke and Josh.)
Every seat was filled including the bleachers behind us.

Bryon Russell searching for Michael who he knew the whole time wouldn't show!

Notice the fake paparazzi surrounding the fake Michael Jordan...so LAME!