Tuesday, February 26, 2013

22nd Birthday Shenanigans

My birthday fell on a Monday this year..which meant Noor had to work. 
So naturally.....we celebrated ALL weekend instead. 
On Saturday we started out at As You Wish. 
We each painted something and it was a great time!



I made an "Adventure Jar"....a place where we can keep our extra change 
that we can put toward an adventure!










 







Noor made and awesome spoon caddy...so now my counters won't get gross in between the stirring of the pasta sauce! Yay! :)

We then had lunch at Smash Burger! We LOOOVE that place. The Nutter Butter Shake is definitely something we look forward to.


We then went to see Wreck it Ralf. Unfortunately, my head was hurting and I was getting tired..true pregnant lady form right there..so I almost just wanted to head home for a nap. But we decided to try a movie anyways. It was a fun time and my head didn't hurt until after the movie ended! Needless to say..after that.. we headed home. 

I took a couple Tylenol and relaxed with my sweet Husband on the couch.

But what about DINNER?!
Again..in true pregnant lady form...I was hungry again! Always always hungry.
We went to Jimmy& Joe's pizza. They serve wicked huge slices. I think I ate MAYBE half of mine.
We then bought some MORE junk food and headed home with a red box movie.
It's all my tired self could handle...but it was perfect.


Sunday was dinner with my parents. My dad made some AWESOME burgers...I always loved his homemade burgers with all the fix-ins...What you can't see here is the avocado that I used as my spread and a big juicy slice of perfect tomato. I have LOVED avocado and tomatoes (especially the avocado) on everything since I have been pregnant. YUMMMM.


On Monday, Husband came home with my birthday present. It was perfect. I had told him a few weeks back that I had wanted a few of these beautiful figures..and he totally remembered! He is so good to me. :) We then went to Joe's Farmhouse Grill for dinner and we watched a movie like we did last year on my birthday. We missed having a truck to use to watch the movie under the stars...but maybe sometime down the road we will have one again. (Noor is just dying for that day to come).


I love that it even looks like us...the husband even has reddish hair :)




Sunday, February 24, 2013

Kidney bean, gummy bear, BABY!!

At our first Dr. appointment for baby back in January, 
we were lucky enough to have an ultrasound done! 
They just wanted to check for a heartbeat and proper growth. I was about 9 weeks pregnant so the baby was big enough to see easily...and we could easily see that there was only ONE baby in there. Noor kept trying to convince me that there were TWO! I even started to believe him for a little bit. But, lo and behold, there is only ONE Baby Sabbah in there right now and we couldn't be more thrilled :)

Baby Sabbah- 9wks

We were overcome with so much happiness when the technician turned the sound on and we could hear that beautiful strong heartbeat. 
Noor was nearly in disbelief. 
It really made it more real for the both of us!

Friday, February 22, 2013

Family Pictures

                 


Over the holidays, we got our family pictures taken since everyone was in town at the same time!
Linden Leaf Photography took the pictures in this post.
We LOVED working with them and we are thrilled with the pictures that she took!
It was such an exciting shoot!...especially when you consider the announcement that was made!















 
I loved these bottom 2 pictures too much not to share them too.
Linden Leaf Photography did a beautiful job!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

We are PREGNANT!



On December 11th, 2012... we found out that we were PREGNANT!!!



We couldn't wait to tell our families..but we wanted to make the announcement in a super awesome way. After much deliberation...and very careful secret keeping... we decided we'd announce it in a few different ways.

On Christmas Eve, we were with Noor's family. It was the perfect time to spill the beans because his brother was in town as well! We wrapped up 4 blocks that I made, each with a letter of "BABY" on it. And gave them each a bag to open. When all 4 blocks were out, there was a bit of confusion as to what exactly it meant. But once it set in, the excitement and tears began to erupt! This is the first grand baby for Noor's parents!



I also made this sweet ornament for my Mother-in-law's tree.
"Growing by "2 feet" August 2013"

My family had to wait a bit longer. We wanted to tell everyone all at once. Luckily for me, we had family pictures scheduled on New Years Eve! I called the photographer, who is a friend of mine, and told her what I was scheming to do. She was so excited to help with the surprise! So...on photo shoot day, I was soooo nervous! We all started taking pictures and our photographer said, "This one is a really important one...make sure you are all looking at me and smiling!......because Katie and Noor are PREGNANT!! It was so fun to see the phases of everyone's reactions! At first everyone had regular "picture taking" faces on...but in the frames to follow, their expressions changed to "Are you serious?" and "You kept this a secret?!" and then into the happy laughing and excitement.

 I just love this picture below..it captured the emotion of the moment so well!


 When we announced it to our families, we were only about 6-7 weeks along. So we expressed our caution in spreading the word. Noor and I just felt more comfortable waiting a few more weeks to make our news public. Plus...we kind of liked knowing it was an intimate family detail for a little while. It just felt quieter...which we enjoyed.

However...the news quickly became so much for us that we had to share it! (...and my bump was starting to show..so we knew we didn't have all that much time left before it was obvious..:)

So, I put together our announcement and we put it out for the world to see and share in our excitement!



Saturday, February 16, 2013


Noor and I kept Valentine's day pretty low key. He had to work..so we spent our evening out together. We started with an early dinner. Not necessarily on purpose....but I was STARVING. So we headed over to Olive Garden. We were seated right away! (When we left, there was an hour wait!..we had great timing!) We love Olive Garden. It always sounds good....then again...we are big Italian food people..so there is rarely a time when Italian food DOESN't sound good. I digress.

Dinner was delicious and upon it's completion, we headed over to the movie theater to see Warm Bodies. It was HILARIOUS! (We ended up seeing it again with my parents a few days later!! :)

By the time it was over, my tummy was hungry again..perfect time to head home and reheat some leftover pasta!



We didn't get a picture of our meal...
..probably because I was so famished that my poor dinner didn't stand a chance. 



I wore my awesome pink boots with heart socks...the occasion definitely seemed to warrant the festiveness. And besides...those boots were instrumental in the fateful meeting of my sweet husband and I. Our story can be found in the tabs at the top of this awesome blog.

Some people have beef with Valentines Day because they are either single or they have a belief that you shouldn't need a special holiday to express your love the one you love. I get that. I do.
But I don't agree.
Yes, we should express our love to the one we love every day
 and yes, we should live with an attitude of celebration in that love. 
However, one day a year that can be devoted to outwardly celebrating that love is not a bad thing. 
It is a great thing!
And guess what?! You can outwardly celebrate your love on any other day of the year TOO!

Hallmark holiday or not...
We need more love in the world. 

I am grateful for the ways in which my love for my husband has changed my life. It is a love that grows and changes everyday....and I grow and change because of it.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

We moved!! AGAIN!

When we found out we were moving to Texas, before we were even married...we thought we were going to be there for the foreseeable future...(which,,I guess no part of the future is forseeable...so I suppose that statement is still accurate)....But, when the opportunity to move back to Arizona came, we were very surprised. Even if we had expected to return to AZ quickly...we still thought we would have been in Texas for "at least a year."

However...some things happened at Noor's work that presented the opportunity to us...so we took the time to ponder and pray about the decision. We had decided it wasn't the right thing for us to do...as sad as it was. We couldn't afford the move and our lease still had almost a year left on it...and they would want us to move over Christmas break...which was only a few days away and we had nowhere to live. So we had decided now was not the time.

Then, while in AZ over the holidays, the offer arose again.
A more serious offer this time.
They would pay for our move!!
We decided to check out an apartment in AZ owned by the same company we rented from in Texas. It turns out they accept transferred leases..so we wouldn't have to terminate our lease and pay all the fees/ take the hit to our credit!

We had a serious decision to make. It didn't feel right before....so why would it change now? It made it harder because Noor went back to Texas from the Christmas holiday before I did so we were trying to make this decision together from 2 different states! His boss needed an answer pretty quickly...like before I'd even be back in Texas to really be with Noor to discuss it. Thankfully, we were able to make the decision and both feel confident that it was the right thing to do. After deciding to move, everything fell into place. The exact apartment we needed, our finances, our moving help (AKA my loving and AWESOME parents that drove our big truck AGAIN through 3 states)...I won't say that there wasn't opposition in our choice to move..because there definitely was...and there were doubts...but we knew it was what we were supposed to do so we kept pushing through.

The drive was long, but mostly uneventful.
We hit all sort of weather though.
Crazy rain, wind, a MASSIVE dust storm, and even SNOW!
...all in one18 hour journey.
My amazingly generous parents flew out to TX so that they could drive the moving truck back to AZ
for us. This was the second time in a YEAR! They seriously deserve an award..or some sort of cape..
a badge maybe.


We have been richly blessed since our move back to AZ.
We love being so close to our families and the opportunities Noor has at work have been amazing!!

Now.....to get the apartment unpacked and put together.......




Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Houston, we have random.







So apparently Noor is FAMOUS! Ok...so maybe he isn't famous....but his handsome self has been showing up all over ASU's engineering campus as of late. Posters, brochures, on the website, etc. A few friends of ours told us said findings...as we are not on campus much anymore...ever. You know..being 2 states away and graduated and all... It was sure fun to see though! :)


I was a super genius and decided it would be a good idea to spill warm wax from a candle all over me...and the carpet. It was great. Luckily, I had wax remover on hand that totally saved the day! The white carpet was again white after just a few minutes and a little bit of work!





We did lots of neat things in Houston. We wish we would have done more with the time we had there...we didn't realize we'd be leaving so abruptly! We are so thrilled we got to do the things we did while we WERE there though. One of those things was shopping at the Galleria. It is a HUGE mall. Not one that I would choose to shop in regularly, but it made for a fun day trip. We saw some interesting things there and there was definitely LOTS to see. Que the wookie. 


Also while in Houston I was blessed to have the opportunity to work with a talented and experienced photographer. She needed some help running her events and I had just the skill set! Te events were high end corporate parties..which meant I had to get a little more dressed up than I usually do for a shoot...but this job was a huge blessing to our family, no matter how short lived it was.