Baby Update

So, here we are, nearly 28 weeks into this pregnancy. We visited the doc today and he was kind enough to indulge us in an ultrasound. It's pretty hard to see things now that she is getting so big. Regardless, we did get a few shots and some measurements. The above photo of our little girl's hand holding her foot is by far the favorite. Overall, she is measuring to be 29 weeks rather than 28, while her legs measure at 30 weeks 2 days. In other words, she's got long legs (back off boys!). As of right now, she weighs 2 lbs, 12 oz and is projected to be just as big as her brother was when he was born... Sorry, Amanda.

Piano & Kazoo!

Oh how I love what Sam can always come up with. :)

EMOTIONS!

So Mike and I have had a whirlwind of emotions for about a week now. I don't really want to mention what it's about, but my thoughts, as are Mike's, I'm sure, are continually drawn to this amazing possibility! Every time I think about it my heart beats faster, my stomach is all fluttery, and no it's not my little girl, and I just get absolutely excited!

I have wrote my feelings in my personal journal, but I feel like writing them here as well. This is how emotional I am. And I know I'm not overly emotional because of my pregnancy. There is a difference. I can feel the difference. I feel as if I have grown miles and miles in my testimony for my Savior. He is absolutely amazing! Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us so much and always have what's best for us. When I ponder about such a big decision I'm always excited first, but then I can think too much and get scared. Always in the end though, I feel more excited than any other feeling. I know something is going to happen. We're still not quite sure, but something will happen and He is preparing this way for us. He is telling us as one what we need to know, where we need to go, and eventually how it will all play out. His love for us is infinite. He loves each of us individually. He knows our wants and our needs and He knows what road we need to go down. I know it doesn't always seem the best to us, but our Heavenly Father knows everything. He will not lead us down an unhappy road, but will always lead us to a safe harbor. I've felt this more and more this past week. I try so hard to go on with my day and just lose my thoughts in what I'm doing, but it's at these moments, when Sam is napping, that it constantly enters my mind. And when that happens I feel such love and such peace. I then turn my thoughts to how thankful I am to have a loving Father in Heaven. I feel so blessed!

Of course, what happens when days keep going by and you just keep thinking about it? First thought, doubt. Second thought, even more doubt. Today that was happening to me. I was beginning to think have I been playing this whole thing up? Have I been feeling what I want to feel and in turn thinking it was the Spirit testifying it to me? Many other thoughts have crept their way in, but I started reading this book called "The Peacegiver." Again those warm, peaceful, excited feelings came right back to the surface. I thought that immediately I would again doubt, but how could I? This is truly coming from Him. He wants me to know. He wants me to be prepared. I have to wait and just keep trusting. How easy it is to doubt. How easy it is to succomb to such thoughts, but always in the end if our hearts are in the right place then we will know.

I truly trust in my Savior and Father in Heaven that They are guiding me and my little family to what is best for us. It will be scary and it will be hard, but it will be so worth it as well. We will be joyful and will grow closer together as a family. I'm very grateful for this past week with how much I've grown spiritually and with how much already our family is growing together. Even if we don't get what we want in the end, I know that our Father in Heaven will always give and lead us to what we truly need and in turn will help us realize it was what we always wanted.

It's Over!

After 5 1/2 years, 11 semesters, 71 classes, and 143.5 credits, I am finally finished with my undergrad! Although I don't walk until May, I turned in my last assignments on December 6th and am now a free man! It's a fantastic feeling, but someone anti-climatic. My printer didn't even sing the hallelujah chorus when it printed my last assignment. ;) On to the next phase of life!

New Baby!

So wow it's been a long long time since we've wrote on here. :) Ah well.

This August I had to get surgery again for my endometriosis. First, because we were having no luck getting pregnant (so we thought) and second, I was in a lot of pain again. So here rolls around my surgery date. Everything went great. He got rid of more endometriosis and then flushed my tubes to help with the pregnancy part. ;) About a week after my surgery I was completely sick. Morning, day and night. I was alway nautious and we just had no idea why. Finally, 3 weeks after the surgery I gave up and bought a pregnancy test. Things just seemed to be going in that direction. Could that surgery really have helped that quick? Well I took the test and immediately 2 pink lines! Oh my gosh!!!! We're actually pregnant. YAY! But wait I would only technically be 3 weeks along. This can't be right. I remember taking the test with Sam at about 5 weeks and the 2 pinks lines were barely visible and took awhile to show up. These lines were as bright as can be and were pretty much immediate!! Hmm.... To say the least I was really happy, but also a little confused. I called the doctor's office to let them know I was pregnant and we set the appointment up for about 6 weeks out. Man! I have to wait so long.

Well 3 weeks later some things started happening. I was still absolutely sick, but now my heart is pounding randomly, it's racing, and I'm even having heart palpitations. They told me to come in and of course I'm more than happy to come in. They were going to do an ultrasound and my doctor says, "We'll probably not even be able to see the baby. It's only 6 weeks along." I was thinking the same thing, but I needed some answers to why things didn't match up with this pregnancy and also why my heart is doing all this stuff. So we start the ultrasound and immediately finds the baby and it's no 6 week baby. It's not even the 9 week baby I remember seeing Sam at our first appointment with him. This baby had arms and legs! What??? Come to find out I'm 6 weeks further along. I'm 12 weeks. YAY! But then that brings a whole load of questions. How could this be? I had surgery while I was pregnant and he flushed my tubes!! We just sat there staring at this little baby, well huge to me, and wondered. We were both floored. We looked into every question and well this baby was just meant to be here at this time. We have no idea on some answers, but we know the baby is healthy and happy. We could see the baby moving all over the place. :)

It's funny now to think back on that day. I remember thinking I knew exactly how far along I was. I thought it so odd that I could already feel little movements. I was so so so sick!! And now I can just laugh about it and think to myself how happy I am that I just skipped 6 weeks. That's every pregnant woman's dream I would think.

Well on to other matters this pregnancy has been very different from Sam. I was only sick in the morning with him and then it was gone by my second trimester. Everything was pretty much simple with him. Well with this little baby I am sick constantly! Nautious, but never to the point of throwing up. I can never get relief. :( I have a somewhat overactive thyroid. The tests have all been so different. That's been awesome!! I already mentioned about my heart, but then when I went in to see the endocrinologist for my thyroid he then tells me I have a heart murmur. Wow little one what are you doing to my body? I am just now not worrying about everything and taking it as it is. I just can't wait to finally get some good news and find out what we're having.

My 20 week appointment finally arrives! I progress to tell my OB about the heart murmur and guess what? I now get to go to a cardiologist! How many doctors can I get sent to? He thinks that everything will be just fine, but he just wants to be sure. He doesn't want me going into heart failure on him. Well that was not the news I wanted. Let's get to the ultrasound. I want my good news!!! I feel pretty lucky though because they had a brand new machine and it's got some pretty neat things it can do. Well the ultrasound tech checks everything. The baby is healthy!! YAY! It's got all of it's organs and everything seems to be working great. So then since this was a brand new machine they had the expert do all the fun stuff. Like the 4D. It was amazing! They decided to do the head shot first and this baby already looks absolutely beautiful! The baby kept trying to hide. It would keep putting its arms in front of its face. So we watched the arms moving up and down. We even watched the baby roll around. So fun! We then went down to the legs. This baby has some long legs!! It was kicking its legs back and forth and just having a blast. I knew this baby was a mover. I can feel it all the time and this ultrasound just confirmed how active this little one is. :) Anyway now to get to the big news. We're having a GIRL!!! We're so excited!!! We kept telling Sam that he was going to have a sister. He seemed to enjoy watching the ultrasound at first, but then he got bored of watching the same thing over and over again, but I sure didn't!!! It's a girl and we're way happy. Now on to my favorite part. :)

We kept thinking about how we would tell Cherie, Mike's mom, cause we knew she would be so excited considering the first girl was born 8 years ago. After that came 7 boys. So, Mike kept throwing ideas around. We finally went with this. We walked in the house after making her wait all day which she told us she was getting a little impatient. :) I could just see her itching to know. She saw me holding the pictures and you could just see her wanting to rip them out of my hands. So Mike finally says, "Strike another one for the baseball team!" Mom then is quite happy and gives Mike a high five. Little does she know there's more to what Mike is going to say. After the high five he says, "Let's just hope they let girls on the team!" That got such a loud squeal out of mom! You could tell she was so excited. That then produced hugs all around. She couldn't stop smiling the entire time we were over. That was one of my favorite moments of the day. Mike and I talked about it the whole way home. We just kept thinking too bad we couldn't have taped that moment. We would watch it constantly! :) But at least we have a good memory.

So again we're having a GIRL! I just can't stop saying it and I definitely cannot stop smiling. We're really excited! YAY!!!

Halloween Firsts

Sam was a cute little pumpkin for his first halloween. He had so much fun! We went to our wards trunk or treat and we all had a blast. There were a ton of people there. It must be a whole neighborhood thing. Sam was having a lot of fun seeing all the kids in their costumes. He was laughing and smiling the whole time. He was so cute!

We then went to go visit Grandma and Grandpa so they could see Sam. He was showing off his rolling skills and had Grandma laughing at him. Then when Grandpa was holding him, Sam decided he really liked Grandpa and gave him 5 kisses in a row. It was adorable. Grandpa sure appreciated that. Sam also showed a new trick of his. He has learned the concept of crawling. He still prefers rolling, but he'll show you he can do it. :)

After Grandmas and Grandpas we went to Taco Bell for their Black Jack Taco and that was delicious. Then off to home and the moment we got home and sat Mike was out like a light. I guess he was tired from our fun Halloween day. So overall Halloween was fun for us and we had a lot of firsts.

Gut Splittin' Laugh and Other Life Updates

So, the other night Sam was refusing to go to bed (what's new) and was making some funny noises. I decided to mimic him and he thought it was hilarious. It was probably the hardest I have ever heard him laugh.

The next night I was making the same noise to him and he still thought it was funny. I started adding other sounds in and he just laughed twice as hard. We ended up getting a video of it, but I guess it's too big to post on here. We ended up posting it on Facebook instead so please run on over there and watch it. How can you not laugh when watching that video?

In other news, life is as busy as ever. I'm back in school being busy, busy and Amanda is still working (not as much) and loves spending so much time with Sam. He's growing soooo fast. It's strange to look back at photos even from the summer because he looks so much younger. His personality is really coming out. He's a fun-loving boy that enjoys spending time with his parents. I love coming home from school cause when he sees me, he gets the biggest grin.

His newest development is transportation. No, he can't crawl, but he'll roll with the best of 'em. We'll put him on the ground and the next thing we know, he's rolling across the floor trying to get something he sees on the other side of the room. Wow!

Finding Wii Controllers

Getting comfy & cozy

Sleeping in random areas

We also had our first bout with illness. A couple of weeks ago, Sam came down with croup. Talk about scary! It's never fun to wake up in the middle of the night and find your child struggling to breath. He ended up getting it twice, but he's now healthy again. Thank goodness!

Another piece of exciting news is that I'm for sure going to Israel with my choir next May! Wow, what an opportunity. I'm excited for the musical experience that it will be, but even more than that, excited to be able to spend some time in the land where Christ lived, where His miracles were performed, and where he wrought the atoning sacrifice for us. I've heard so many good things about that area and can't wait to experience it for myself.

Among everything that is going on right now and the many amazing things that are to come everything still seems the same. Although it does change everyday with having a child. We feel very grateful for everything we have, and just want to say thank you to all those who have helped us in our recent times of need.