The Belly

Ok-I have had way too many requests to see the belly so far so here it is! This is from the other night and I am about 5 months along-and the little thing won't stop kickin me! It is so precious! Oh and this is the first time I wore my maternity jeans and I loved them! They looked like regular jeans and it was the first time I have been able to wear jeans in months! Thanks mom!

One Year!

Cole and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary on Saturday. We had so much fun! We went out to breakfast in the morning (I love french toast!!), came back and got some things done during the day, and then that night we went to Carrabba's for dinner and then to this place called Color Me Mine in Provo. It was so much fun. You go and pick out a piece of ceramic and then they have all the paints and supplies you need. After you paint your piece they glaze it and put it in the kiln and all you have to do is pick it up three days later and it is done! Cole made me a cereal bowl because I love to eat cereal and I did a cup for him because he loves drinks. We are going to go pick them up this week! I am so excited to see how they turned out! Thinking back we have had such a great year together. We have experienced alot but have had fun experiencing them together. I am so grateful to be married to Cole-he is such a great support to me! I love him so much and look forward to our next adventurous year together!

TGIF

I am sooooo glad it is Friday!! I have survived my first week teaching and am very ready for the weekend. Things have gone pretty well. It is really nice not to be in school anymore and to have everything I am doing "for real". But along with that comes the pressure and responsibility of everything. I only have 24 students which is really nice but I definitely have some that will test my patience! My class room is finally starting to look better and be more functional. ( I will post pics later-there are still some things I want to put up and right now my name place is spelled wrong!) There is just so much to learn and hopefully I get better as I go along. Things that other teachers do automatically just take me so much more time because I am so less experienced. But I am really enjoying it and trying to put my everything into it. It is so rewarding to see your students either enjoy their learning or succeed at something difficult. The hard part is making them enjoy it and helping them succeed! I have a handful of students that I also student taught last year and it has been a big relief to have some of them in my class. That is a handful of student whose names I don't have to memorize. Also it is very comforting to see some of them in the halls and have them say, "Oh Mrs. Ratcliffe your back!" and "Mrs. Ratcliffe I wish I was in your class!" That always makes me feel good! The students are all so funny about me being pregnant. They are always giving me advice and stuff. They also want the baby to be the class pet for next semester!

Summer Summary

So the past month has been extremely busy and I have royally slacked in my blogging so here is a quick update on how the summer went.

We went to Galveston for the 4th of July. It was fun but the beach was pretty nasty due to all the rain we have been getting. But we stayed in this adorable little beach house, went shopping, played on the beach, ate at Fish Tails ( a Galveston tradition), and had a fun time. We were only there a few days but it was really nice to get away for a while.

ITS A BOY!! We found out earlier this month that we will be having a boy! Who would have thought it was possible in my family?! We are still discussing names and nothing is decided at the moment. But I am getting quite the bump and Joel (nickname-Jenna and Cole put together-not the real name) is a very active baby. I get kicked all day.

We went to a Rangers Game with some of our extended family and we had awesome seats. It was really good to see and spend an evening with them. Cole was soooo excited to go-he brought his mitt and everything. My cousin's son, Ethan, was so cute to watch. He just sat there and watched the game like he was totally into it. I can just see Cole taking his little son to games and both being totally into it!

Some people in my past wards from home threw me a quick baby shower right before we left. It was so much fun! Baby stuff is so cute. I have decided to make the nursery green and brown due to the large amount of things I got that were green and brown. They did this cute idea-instead of random baby shower games everyone sat around and made a scrapbook page. Then they put it into a book so all I have to do is go back and put the pictures in! I thought it was a genius idea! Thanks so much to Heather, Jerri and Aria!

Cole found out about this ballroom club in Dallas so we went on a ballroom dancing date. We went with best friend Alexi and her boyfriend Tim. It was a blast! Last year I made Cole take this beginning ballroom, couples only class so we were able to use what we learned from the class. We did the Waltz, Cha Cha, Triple Swing, Foxtrot, and Salsa. Everyone else there was probably between the ages of 40-60 and were single. We kept getting comments like, "Oh it is nice to see some young people here!" In Utah, a place like this would only have young people there. It was so funny to see all these old people dancing their little hearts out. But I must say I was way impressed at how well many of the old men danced!

I guess the latest update is that we have made the drive to Utah and have moved into our new apartment and trying to get ready for the school year. I really like our new apartment-way bigger than our old one. And now I am just trying to get my classroom set up and and get ready for school to start. Students start on Tues. and teachers started on the 15th. It has been a pretty stressful week trying to move, get the house set up and get ready to teach school all in about a week and a half! Cole will start his last year at BYU in a couple of weeks. We have a busy year ahead of us!

My B-day Cake

I know this is from a while ago but I am very behind in my blogging! So after I made Cole's cake for his birthday he decided he would make one for me. I have to admit- his frosting designs turned out much better than mine! I was very proud! I couldn't help but post them! Thanks honey!

For Shan

Random story:
Ok Shan I thought you would get a kick out of this! So you know how for years we have been talking about "noodly with egg". Well the other day after church (in my last blog I was talking about eating and church-that is how I remembered this and I have been meaning to tell you) we all came home to make whatever we wanted for lunch-you know-the snacky lunches? So I guess Kayla has never actually had noodly with egg. So we are all doing our own thing and I walk past the stove and see Kayla starting to boil water to make ramen and then next to her ramen I see this bowl of already scrambled egg. I picked up the bowl and asked Kayla what this was for. She said, "I am making noodly with egg. Doesn't it have scrambled egg in it?" We all just about died laughing. It was cute-she was just trying to make it from what she had heard over the years. I thought you would appreciate that!

Oh Baby Oh Baby!

You guessed it! Cole and I are expecting our first baby!! I am about 14 weeks along and doing well! I am due on New Years Eve. That should work just perfectly with teaching. I will teach the first semester, have the Christmas break for the end part of my term and to deliver, and then take my leave the beginning part of January. So it will be like a long extended break. Then I will continue teaching out the rest of the year. That is the plan so far but, as always, things could change. We will find out on August 1st if it is a girl or boy and yes we want to know. Cole of course wants a boy and I want a little girl! But we will be excited for either one. We have had a lot of fun thinking of names and such.

I don't quite have a distinct bump yet but I am definitely getting a bit thicker and things are fitting tighter. I went shopping the other day for "baggy" clothes and it was so much fun. There are a bunch of shirts now that are really popular that are fitted around the bust and then baggy all the way down. They have been perfect to wear! Pants are getting harder but I am not big enough to wear maternity pants so I am resorting to stretchy stuff. It has been really nice because I wear scrubs practically everyday for work so they are baggy and comfortable. It will be hard to switch from those to nice teacher wear. As for morning sickness I really haven't had any...but I do feel pretty sick and grumpy in the evenings. During the day I always have to keep food and water in me. If I let myself get too hungry I get very dizzy and sick feeling. One time on Sunday while I was still keeping the pregnancy on the "down low" I brought crackers to eat during Relief Society because I knew I would not be able to make it all the way through church without eating something. So I sat down next to my mom right when it was starting and started to get my crackers and my mom totally freaked out. She was like, " unless you want everyone here to know you are pregnant, you better go eat those in the bathroom." I totally had not even thought about that. But yeah in a room full of women I guess it would have been a dead give away as a newly wed to be eating crackers during Relief Society. So went to a bathroom stall and quietly ate my crackers to myself!