On to the next chapter

Sorry for the lack of blog posts in the past few months... things have been pretty crazy for our little family.  We spent much of our summer packing up our home in Provo, preparing for our move to Houston.  Now we're finally here and we're counting down the days until our little one arrives.
Provo has been very good to us for the past several years.  Grant and I were both able to study at and graduate from Brigham Young University.  Grant was able to teach missionaries at the MTC and I taught second graders at Westside Elementary.  And Provo is also where we were able to meet each other and fall in love :)  We've made great friends that we know we'll have forever and made lots of memories that we'll cherish.  For all of these reasons (and many more) we are very grateful for all of our time spent in the beautiful Provo, Utah.  Here are some pictures of our last few weeks:

After several years and countless intramural teams, Grant was finally able to win a shirt this summer... TWICE!  The first one came from coed kickball during the spring term, and just a few weeks ago his softball team became champs.  The team was thrown together last minute and most of the members didn't know each other.  They only won 1 game during the regular season, but came together and meshed so well during the tournament that they made it all the way to the end!

We had heard this was the best snow cone place in Provo and it definitely didn't disappoint!  I only wish we had discovered it earlier in this super hot summer!

Last cafe rio :(

Grant's birthday!

He got a new BYU blanket

and we went to Brick Oven one last time for a birthday dinner

Grant didn't end up walking in his graduation ceremony, but we did take some pictures to document the occasion!

Our final to-do list, preparing for the move

The morning of the move was very bittersweet.  We were excited to be moving close to family and starting the next chapter, but it was very hard leaving all of our friends, our first apartment together, and the security and familiarity of our college town.  It was a great 5 years for me (and 4 for Grant) that we will always remember and hold dear.  We don't know when we'll be there again but we're looking forward to it someday!

The move wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, especially considering the fact that I was 8 months pregnant at the time!  It went by pretty fast and I was fairly comfortable.  The only complaint was that my legs and feet swelled up like balloons!  It was pretty embarrassing!  But it's been so nice being able to swim and spend time in real air conditioning since we got here to Houston.  I never realized how wonderful swimming is for a pregnant woman, but now that I know I'll definitely be spending lots of time in the pool before the baby comes.  I'm 37 weeks today, so I'm technically full term and baby could come anytime.  Only 3 weeks until the actual due date... CRAZY!!

Baby Shower

Today we had our baby shower for our baby girl.  We've been planning it for weeks, so we were really excited when it finally got here!  My old roommates and I worked together on all of the decorating and food and it all came together so perfectly!  We all agreed that it was the cutest baby shower we'd ever been to :)

The cookies and milk were all delicious and definitely filled us up!  It was a co-ed baby shower, so we had lots of fun games that everyone enjoyed!

We had so much fun, but the festivities definitely wore us out (not to mention all of the cookies and milk that added to our sleepiness).

Thanks to everyone who helped make the day a success!  It was the best baby shower we could've asked for!

champs

I've finally made it.  Intramural champ.  Granted, it's in the ever fierce league of kickball, but hey, I finally got a shirt (the reward for winning an intramural tournament).  I've come close in some of the other sports in the past (like softball, volleyball, frisbee, soccer, and football to name a few). So even if the shirt comes from being champs in a childhood game, I'll take it.

While daddy is off becoming an intramural champ, here is a picture of our little champ growing in Katie's tummy.  She's getting stronger every day!  And bigger!  This is the most recent picture at 26 weeks.

And I can't end this entry of champs without showing what Katie has been doing (besides growing a person inside of her.)  She is the champ of making wreaths.  Here is her newest creation for the 4th of July.

Super cute, huh!

It's a GIRL!!

Well, everyone already knows by now that Grant and I will be having a girl in September.  We couldn't be happier!!  Grant has felt the whole time that it was a girl, but I couldn't make up my mind.  Now we know for sure!!  The ultrasound was amazing!  It's unbelievable the kinds of things they can do with technology these days.  We were able to see all of our baby's little features, as well as all four chambers of the heart, the blood in her body, the amount of fluid in her organs, etc.  It's incredible!  We were very happy to hear that our baby is doing well.  During the ultrasound, our baby kept moving around to different positions.  One minute she would be curled up with her feet completely over head, and the next she would be spread out.  It definitely made for fun pictures!  I'm finally feeling her move.  I've been feeling little flutters for several weeks, but for the past few days her movements have been much more obvious and definite.  It's so much fun getting to feel her move around inside of me.  Here are some pictures from her ultrasound:

curled up in a little ball

lying flat

She's pretty cute, huh?  It was hard to wait after the ultrasound to know her gender, but I'm glad we did.  We had a fun party with a bunch of our friends out here, and it was great that most of our family could be on to see it live as well.  We had everyone vote and the Parker and Zinn family were the only groups that had the majority guess girl.  More of our friends guessed boy and a great majority of my students thought it would be a boy.  It was funny, because they all thought since they voted for boy that meant it had to be a boy.  Sorry guys!

treats!!

It's a girl!!!

team pink

team blue

We couldn't be happier!!  It's probably a good thing I only have 4 more weeks of school because all I want to do now is plan, plan, plan!  We're so excited!

I'm now at 20 weeks and the baby is getting bigger and bigger!

Grant's also having some sympathy symptoms :)

Thanks to everyone who was able to come and support us at our gender reveal party and to everyone who tuned in via google hangout.  We're sorry to those who weren't able to make it, but appreciate all of your love and support as well.  We can't wait for Baby Zinn to meet all of you!  

P.S.  We are not set on any girl names at this point.  For now, Grant is calling her Sha-nayla or Roverette, while I am calling her Sequin because a girl in my class suggested it :)  

is something different?

A husband has to be on his toes when the wife changes her appearance so he can be quick to comment on it.  Well, this change didn't take me long to figure out!

Before:

After:

Read our New York post below if you haven't read that one!