Jammin it up

I have to admit I don't even like jam...I don't do PB&J I do PB&H (honey is much better)...I don't like jam on toast or anything. Maybe I just don't like store bought jam. Margo makes the best strawberry jam and I've learned to like homemade jam. I asked her if she would teach me how to make it. I've always had this idea that making jam was such a long and time consuming process!

I just wanted to eat the strawberries....one for me, one for the bowl, two for me, one for the bowl...three for Cameron...

When my mom found out I was taking a jam making class at Margo's, she wanted to sign up too...Michele decided to come a long to help. As my mom always says "many hands make light work." We had fun making jam and Margo said it actually took half the time since we were all helping. As you can see the ingredients are strawberries, sugar, and sure jel. One thing that I miss about living in Charlotte is picking fresh strawberries. It was so much fun to go to the strawberry fields and get your bucket and pick until it was full. The strawberries were really small, but so sweet. They would have made delicious jam!

I think Jeremy and I have enough jam for the next several years :) The whole process was really easy and fun. I would definitely make it again, but I don't think we will be running out any time soon. I made some to give to the people who helped us move and am going to put a little sign around the jar saying "thanks for helping us out of a jam...we couldn't have moved without your help!"

Let the Showers begin :)

My first shower was a family shower given by my sisters and mom. They all put a lot of work into making it a fun and special day. I had fun seeing cousins and other family members I hadn't seen in a long time.

Michele made these cute inviations for my shower. We went to pick out the paper at the scrap book store and I was down one isle looking for cute paper and they were both down different isles...well I got the worst foot cramp ever and fell to the floor. I felt so stupid because two people were down that isle looking at paper. I tried to remain calm and act cool...I said "Michele come here and look at this cute paper I found" hoping she would help me up. She said, "just a second I'm looking at something." So I yelled to my mom "I found some paper that might work down this isle...I'm looking at it on the bottom shelf." No luck, she responded in the same way "hold on I think I found something over here." Finally they came to my rescue but by that point I didn't care what paper we picked or how the invitations turned out...I just wanted to get out of there. So good job on making the invitations so cute Michele. She also made these way cute favors for everyone to take. They were little, tiny purses and they had a hershey's nugget inside of them. The saying around the purse said "Just wanted to PURSEonally thank you for coming to Meg's baby shower."

My mom found this cute baby balloon...

I've never seen such a cute diaper cake, but leave it to Michele to come up with the cutest one ever!! I don't even want to take it apart to use the diapers inside or to use all the cute things around it. I might just leave it like this in Cameron's room forever. My mom, Margo and Michele all put in money for the gift and Michele was creative to get items off my registery and use them as the "icing" and "decorations". THANKS guys!

Margo & Michele made some delicious food...my favorites were the chocolate dipped strawberries and the oreo truffles!


Everyone grabbed a plate of food and sat around chatting before opening presents.


Lots of fun presents!


Most everyone we invited came. Too bad none of Jeremy's family live in Utah (besides his grandma) or I'm sure they would have been there too. It was so nice of Theresa and Amber to mail shower gifts...I felt like they were there and part of the shower even though they weren't!!


My cute mom and me


My mom made this baby quilt (it was a labor of love). I helped her pick out the material and we used the acutal sheet that will be in Cameron's crib for one of the squares and then chose colors to match that...so it will all tie in. The material is so soft, it's called Minke. Tica is jealous already...she really really wanted this blanket!


My aunt and cousins gave us a baby bouncer that we signed up for. I am sure it will get used often!

Jeremy's mom Theresa sent a bag with lots of fun stuff (soft blanket, hooded lion towel, bath toys, a picture book, socks, some clothes), but the cutest thing was this little polo shirt and polo shorts...I can't wait to see Cameron in this outfit!

Mallory is such a crack up! She was so excited to come to my shower and could't wait "to see my cousin Cameron and give him a shower." She actually thought he was born and we were all going to help clean him up. Every time she sees me she says, "is that my cousin in your tummy?" My Aunt Diane sent this little shirt along with a bunch of other presents. She lives in Alaska, but they had just gone on a 9 week cruise and she must have got this shirt at one of her stops in Mexico. Well, Mallory fell in love with the shirt and wouldn't let go of it. She kept saying "this shirt will be too small for Cameron" and "it would fit on my bear." After the shower was over Margo helped load up the gifts into her car and took me over to our house to unload them and drop me off. We were talking about that cute shirt and how funny Mallory was about it. Margo said "I hope Mallory gave it back to you" and just then I looked in the back seat to see Mallory pull the shirt out from under her booster seat and say "I was just holding this for you Meg." She kept reminding me that it would be too small for Cameron though.

What next???

What could be the worst thing that could happen to a pregnant person?? I would have to say having no air conditioning in your car in the summer! Yup you guessed it...the AC went out in my jeep the other day....of course it was the hottest day of the year so far!! There's nothing like sweating and sticking to hot black leather seats :) Just another thing for us to worry about...do we spend the money to fix it OR do we just get another car for me?? This was the last straw for Jeremy and my jeep (they have a hate/hate relationship) he doesn't want to spend anymore money fixing it, but I still argue that it's paid off and is a lot cheaper that car payments!! The next worst thing that can happen when being pregnant are all the aches and pains and scary problems that plague you. I had a weird thing happed 2 days ago that left me unable to move my leg or walk. I've never had such a horrible pain in my hip, groin, butt, and hamstring...I wasn't able to even move my leg or put weight on it to walk. I was hunched over holding onto anything I could to get around. Jeremy had to help me get dressed. he put the mattress my parents have for a guest bed on the floor in the family room so I could sleep on it since I couldn't get up and down stairs to our bedroom. I called the emergency number for my Dr. he happened to be on call...he thought Cameron might be laying on something pinching a nerve and told me to take Tyleno and a hot bath and if it wasn't better than to go to physical therapy the next day. Well, it wasn't better the next day so I went to physical therapy. The pain slowly got better through the day and is much better today. However, I was mad I spent a $25 copay for physical therapy when the whole time I was thinking, "I would rather have spent the money on a nice massage...I've been wanting one so bad but haven't wanted to spend money on it!" I just hope the pain doesn't come back. I think I can endure 5 more weeks, but I gave Cameron a fair warning that he is for sure getting a time out when I see him :)

Proud owners of Another house!!

We closed on our 2nd house today...Aprl 15th, 2009...tax day...and it's been snowing all day! We enjoy owning houses so much we decided to get another one, but at least we will get to live in this one. As of now our house in NC still sits vacant and lonely...I miss that house, but am excited to move into our new house and make it a home! This will be the house Cameron grows up in...and what he will call home. He will be here in 6 weeks (we really cut it close to moving in and unpacking before he comes). We took this picture yesterday during the final walk through. I will post more pics of the inside and all that fun stuff when we move in and get settled.

It's a rambler with 5 bedrooms, a big bonus room above the 4 car garage that has the apoxy flooring (nice feature). The yard is already landscaped really nice and we don't really have to do much to the inside. The neighboorhood seems really quiet! We met our first neighboor yesterday as we were leaving. My parents, Janessa and Michele wanted to come on the walk through with us because they couldn't wait to see the inside of the house. My parents have been so excited for us and involved in the process...they probably drove by the house during this whole process, to keep looking at it, more than we did :) After the walk through my parents took Jeremy and I and our realtor to dinner to celebrate. We ate at Training Table (you guessed it)! Today our realtor and loan guy gave us "house warming" gifts....a blanket with The Cunningham Home Established 2009 stitched on it and a nice glass water pitcher.

Hippity Hoppity Easter

Yeah for Easter and Easter baskets! Jer & I exchanged our Easter gifts in the morning before we went to church. I hid his presents in the house (within two rooms) thinking he would find them fast. He sucks at hide & seek...after giving him multiple hints and short of just showing him where I hid them he found them! I think that was a good excuse for being late to church don't you??

Jeremy brought home these pretty Easter flowers for me!

My parents had an Easter dinner for the family, Margo and Rick and their kids went out of town to San Diego for Easter and the kids' spring break so we missed having them around. Janessa and Spencer probabaly figured "more eggs for us to find!" Next year Cameron will be old enough for the egg hunt...how exciting :) Jeremy had fun hiding the eggs this year and did a good job. It took a long time to find the last egg!!

Spencer found his special Easter bag first...

Janessa was second to find her Easter bag...

Cameron found his Easter bag third...isn't third the best of all the game? My dad hid it on the grill under the grill cover, so none of it was showing. You would think with two of us we would have found it fast, but remember how I told you Jeremy isn't so good at hide & seek??

Michele was counting Janessa's loot....it was funny because Janessa thought she got a "dud" egg since it didn't shake or make noise when she picked it up. She said to me "I got a dumb dud" as she opened it up and there was $1 inside of it...we laughed and she said, "maybe it wasn't a dud after all."

Getcha blog on!

I feel like I am the last person in the world to not have a blog! I'm so not the type of person to do facebook, my space, LDS singles and all that stuff everyone else has been doing for years! I've never understood how people have time to do those things....and I never remember to look at other people's blogs so I figured it would be a waste of time. Anyway, Margo has enjoyed doing her blog and it's fun to look at (when I remember) and Jeremy had mentioned to me several times that I should start one. I had all sorts of excuses of why I didn't want to start a blog, but Jeremy insisted and even set the whole thing up for me. With a 10 minute lesson from Margo about how to get started I was roped into starting a blog. It took a while to organize all of our pictures into folders by events and dates and then name each picture, but once I got that organized I got my blog on! I didn't like the idea of just starting "out of the blue" so with my OCD'ness' I decided to start from the beginning of us dating. That is why most of my posts are under March...because I spent several weeks doing nothing but blogging (what a weird word!) Anyway, I am having fun doing it and enjoying remembering all the good times and laughing out loud as I post things. It has been a good reminder for me to read other people's blogs as well. I'm still not a pro and that is why I don't have music and all kinds of pictures down the side, but give me some time and I will be a veteran! So thanks Jeremy for giving me the nudge to start a family blog :)

Bubba's on his way to Jeep heaven :(

Jeremy and I had been discussing getting a new vehicle for me that would be more reliable and safe (his words) since we were having a baby. Just a few days after the conversation about getting a new car and Jeremy saying "I just don't want to have it break down all of a sudden and us have to dump a bunch of money into it to keep fixing it". I reluctantly agreed to take it to Carmax to see how much they would give us for the Jeep. After they told us they would give us $1,200 (and then sell it at an auction for around $3,000) I laughed in their face and said "I don't think so". I began pleading my case for all the reasons why I needed to keep my Jeep and how reliable it had been...it's paid off so, no car payment....I have only had to fix a few little things over the 10 years I've had it, so it's not a lemon and I haven't had to dump a bunch of money into reapirs...I love driving it even though my dad and Jeremy call it "the Tank" and hate driving it....it is totally safe...it looks good...it's 4 wheel drive...and did I mention it's paid off!!! I felt great in defending Bubba, we've known eachother for over 10 years and he's been to California and back numerous times & lived with me there helping me find my way around, lived with me in NC and drove all over finding new places & getting me where I needed to go, gotten me safely to all my desitinations, especially up to Oakley for work-a 45 minute drive up Parley's Canyon and beyond that on snowy, stormy days that would have scared off any other vehicle :) Good ol' Bubba! Well, I'm sad to say his days of living with me are coming close to an end. I suddenly have a love/hate realtionship with him. Exactly what Jeremy didn't want to happen is starting to happen!! Last month I was having a horrible, stressful day. I was sick of being pregnant, being sick and being in pain, sick of dealing with all the stress of our NC house and finding a house here...etc So I decided to take a relaxing drive up to Park City, get some lunch and look around at the outlets (not too temping to shop and buy things when you can't fit into anything :) Halfway up Parley's Canyon Bubba starts to jerk and slow down and as I make my way over to the shoulder he suddenly has zero power. I had the petal to the metal and he was only going 2 miles an hour...so I stayed on the shoulder and decided I would just keep going until he totally died. Semi trucks were flying past me and scaring me! We finally made it up the hill 30 minutes later and got off the first exit. I coasted down the hill and then he died in the middle of the intersection, I had called Jeremy to tell him what was going on. He decided to leave and come rescue me when he found out I was stuck in the middle of an intersection. Luckily I was able to start it up and pull safely into a gas station. I called AAA and they came a few minutes after Jeremy got there to haul Bubba to a mechanic. We picked him up later and were relieved to know that it was just the air filter that had somehow come off into pieces and got sucked into the engine. So $77 later I was together again with Bubba and all was fine! Jeremy still had his doubts and pushed his case for a new vehicle. Then Bubba began having problems accelerating at stop lights and wouldn't kick into gear at times. I took it to a different mechanic and they couldn't re-create the problem so they guessed it just needed a good tune up...new spark plugs, new distributor cap, new seals, a good engine cleaning etc. $655 later Bubba's a good as new! Until I'm driving it home from the mechanic and the same problem I took it in for happens. I called the mechanic and told him I was able to re-create the problem, so I took Bubba back the next day and they determined it "might" be the fuel pump. So another $300 some odd dollars goes to fix the fuel pump. A few days later I'm getting on the freeway when it just dies! Completely dies!! I hurried and started it back up and went on my way...only to have it die 4 more times in that day. Back to the mechanic I go...they think it "might" be the crank shaft sensor this time. So in goes a crank shaft sensor and we're on the road again. Until 3 days later the problem continues. I drop it off again for them to guess the next thing it "might" be...so they "think" it has something to do with it idling too low. In goes a part for the idle and back on the road we go! We'll see if that works. Jeremy and I went car looking last night and only 25% of me was sad. However, I did bring up the fact that "we have fixed a lot of stuff on it recently...so maybe since we've put that money into it, it's dumb to sell it now...it will be good for another year or two." Anyone want to buy a Jeep? I think I've fixed all the problems now :) and I don't think Jeremy is going to let me talk him into keeping Bubba around. He doesn't want to hear me say "Cameron might want to drive it when he turns 16" ha ha!