Are You Prepared?

The Tiner family is all about emergency preparedness. So much so, that every time Matt's parents come to visit, his dad makes sure to visit Emergency Essentials to stock up on random supplies. Matt definitely learned this from his father.

Meet Matt's creation, the Altoid tin survival kit:



The picture doesn't do it justice, but there are 44 individual pieces in this kit--all in the space of an Altoid tin! This kit contains:

5 waterproof/windproof matches
3 safety pins
2 small fishing hooks
2 larger fishing hooks
20lb fishing line
3 small sinkers
2 sandwich bags for water storage/purification
1 antibiotic ointment
1 bandaid
2 sewing needles
1 white thread
1 xacto knife blade
20 gauge steel wire
1 twist tie for water bag
1 square foot of tin foil
1 survival card
1 can opener
1 whistle with lanyard
1 led light
1 rubber band
1 alcohol wipe
1 paper clip
6 water purification tablets (add 2 per 1 qt water, let sit for 30 min)
lint for fires
65 cents

How cool is that? We have one in our car, and although I hope we don't ever have to use it in a real emergency, some of that stuff might come in handy.

Isn't Matt the greatest? I just love him!

Catch-up (Belly Picture)

This post is two weeks late, but I had to post my baby bump at 24 weeks (6 months!). That was two weeks ago, so obviously it's even bigger now, but I'll wait and post another one at 7 months.

That thing just popped up over night! This picture was taken one

week after the belly picture I included in the last post...

This was the same weekend that Kevin and Annie got married, so we spent all day Saturday up in Bountiful. We had a few hours to kill between the luncheon and the reception, so obviously we used that time to take a few ridiculous pictures.

This is Brittany. Although she doesn't have a human baby in her stomach, she claims to have a "food baby." This is her showing off it off. I'm pretty sure she doesn't check my blog very often, otherwise I might in trouble for posting this :)

There really is no explanation for this one, other than we're just showing off how cool we are.

I can't believe these are the only pictures I took of that whole day. I really need to get a camera besides the one on my iphone.

The wedding was a lot of fun, and I can't believe I'm 6 months pregnant! So close, yet so far...

Catch-up (Memorial Day)

I realize this was weeks ago, but I've been a bit lazy about blogging. Memorial Day weekend my family had a family reunion in Las Vegas! We rented an 8,800 square foot house which was originally a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom house, but the renters added 4 additional bedrooms in some interesting places (like the over-sized pantry, the huge master room closet, and the one-car garage) to create an 8 bedroom house that can accommodate more people. The inside, despite its oddities, was pretty nice, but the backyard was the best part of the whole vacation.

The view of the patio (complete with ping pong and foosball tables).
There were 5 sets of french doors that went from the house to the backyard.

A view of the pool, gazebo, and rock landscaping.
That's Jill and me danglingour feet into the hot tub (which was only lukewarm on a good day)

The front of the house

We spent a lot of time lounging around the house, and just enjoying being together. There were several optional activities, with the only mandatory activities being old family photo distribution, and the professional family pictures we had taken on Tuesday morning.

Hanging out at the dining room table going through all the family photos from the MT house

A few snapshots from picture day. There was a variety of colors we told everyone they could wear,
and we were the three wearing red. So cute!

This was also the day Matt had the stomach flu. He's such a trooper!

A preview from our photographer. I just think this picture is adorable!

A preview of the big group shot

The other pictures I'm posting are just a random sampling of the vacation. Thank you Megan, Mark, and Amy for letting me steal your pictures off of Facebook. I really need to get a camera!

Sunday morning waffle breakfast, compliments of Amy. I can say, however, that I single-handedly
worked 3 waffle irons at once in order to cook waffles for 20 people. Now that's talent.

Four brothers-in-law going head-to-head in a foosball championship

Matt and Rob trying to recreate an act we saw in Cirque du Soleil Mystere.

Modeling my baby bump

Two thumbs up and one high-five for family reunions in Las Vegas!

Crafting Mayhem

I picked up this little beauty at a thrift store for $1.


Matt's response: "You're going to do something to that, right?" I'm not sure why he wouldn't want to hang it up in our apartment as is. It matches our decor so well.

As it so happens, I was buying that lovely piece of art for the frame, and not the angel inside. I got the idea for a no-sew fabric wreath courtesy of Vanessa @ V and Co.


I am pretty pleased with the way mine turned out. I picked 5 fabrics that coordinate with our bedroom and went to town! I would have liked to use a bigger frame, but this was the only square frame I could even find. I'll have to keep a lookout for more frames in the future.


And here is my finished product. I still have one blank wall in our bedroom that's screaming for decorations, so hopefully I'll post again soon about my next crafty adventure!

20-Week Stats

That's right, we've made it half way and everything is looking good! We had our official "anatomy scan" last week where we got to see our little man in action once again. According to the measurements they took, he was weighing in at about 11 oz. and measuring 4 days bigger than his due date of Sept. 25. We'll see on Monday when I meet with my doctor if that means we get to officially move my due date or not.
As for me, I tend not to wear a lot of form-fitting clothes these days, but if I do, you'll see that I look like this:
A baby bump! I can't really button any of my pants anymore, so I've been forced to rely on rubber bands while I wait for the weather to warm up so I can wear skirts on a more regular basis. I am happy to report, however, that I have not gained any weight!

I started feeling him move 3 or 4 weeks ago. Whenever Matt and I are home together in the evenings I make Matt put his hand on my stomach if I feel him start moving, so Matt has even gotten to feel him once or twice. It's all beginning to feel more real now!

My Surprise

I went on my first ever "Girls Weekend" this past week, and I came home to find that Matt had been working on a special project while I was gone.
We live in a one-bedroom apartment, and will for a few months after the baby (lovingly nicknamed as Teeny) is born. We already solved the problem of where he will sleep with a half-size pack and play. But in addition to needing a bed, babies need a lot of other stuff. We figured we would just get a small chest of drawers or a bookcase. Now we have Matt's "baby closet" creation!
The picture is bad quality because I took it at night, and we have bad lighting in our dining room. Yes, that's right, the baby closet is in our dining room, but in such a discreet place, I didn't even notice it was there until Matt showed me.

So far, the closet is pretty empty. He hung up the few clothes that we have, and bought a bunch of baby hangers. (Have you ever noticed how cute those things are?!) Everything in it was given to us by our doctor or family members. However, there is one thing I've bought.Megan and I found this treasure back in February at Kohl's on clearance for $2. It was the only gender neutral outfit we could find. Isn't it precious? I can't wait to have a baby to put in it!

Seattle/Vancouver Trip

If you go with us to a new place, you will soon discover, as Megan did this trip, that we're all about the food.

Sight-seeing? Oh, sure. We do some of that. But the food, the local cuisine, is what we're all about. For that very reason, it would seem that most of the pictures I took are of the things we ate.

After 12ish hours in the car, we arrived in Seattle on Friday afternoon. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed downtown to see the sights. We ate dinner at a local pizza place called Belltown Pizza. Surprisingly, I forgot to take a picture of our food there, but it was good.

After dinner we walked along the piers before we took a ferry over to Bainbridge Island...just because we thought it would be fun to ride a ferry. (That is part of Bainbridge Island behind us.)

Here we have Matt showing off the view of the Seattle skyline from inside the ferry. It was a little rainy, so it wasn't very fun to be out on the deck.

Saturday morning we headed up to Vancouver. Our first stop was the LDS temple open house in Langley. We took a few pictures before we left, but they're all on Megan's camera, so I guess you'll have to wait a little longer to see those. By the afternoon we headed to Stanley Park and Robson street, which, according to our research, are some of the must-see places of Vancouver.
Robson street had just what we were looking for: restaurants and shopping. We didn't do any shopping since everything is ridiculously expensive in Canada, but we did do some eating. We had lunch earlier in the day at an A&W/Chubby Chicken (not very Canadian), where Matt sampled poutine.

I took the picture after he had eaten about half of it, but it didn't look that great to begin with. It consists of french fries, gravy, and cheese curds. It is so popular, and so common, that we also saw it on the menu at Costco.

This was our "dinner" on Robson street at the Crepe Cafe. Megan got hers with applesauce, cinnamon, and whipped cream; Matt got Nutella, bananas, and walnuts; and I got mine with dark chocolate and strawberries. Amazing.

We drove back to Seattle that night, then got up Sunday morning to spend a good part of the day in Seattle before starting our drive back that afternoon. We first went on a tour of the Boeing factory in Everett, WA. That was definitely one of the coolest parts of the trip, but no pictures because electronic devices were not allowed on the tour.

After Boeing, we stopped by Ivar's Seafood so Matt could have some Seattle fish & chips. Megan and I opted not to try any.

And then the rest of our time in Seattle was spent at the Space Needle and Pike Place Market.

This the only picture of Pike Place Market I took. This is only a fraction of the gazillion tulips they had there. If they wouldn't have had to sit in a car for the next day and a half we totally would have bought some!

We finally started our trip back late that afternoon, and once we were a little ways outside the city we stopped to get gas and dinner. The Fat Burger we ate at was right next to a Kool Kreme. I'd never considered the concept, but donuts and ice cream are an amazing combination! This shop had extraordinary krispy kremes including chocolate and maple bars, doughnut sundaes, and this creme filled chocolate doughnut.

We are now fans of Seattle, Vancouver, and Kool Kreme. All in all, not a bad trip!