We're a few weeks over halfway! And it's sunny today! What a fabulous day. 

We've been doing little things here and there to get more ready for the munchkin. A few weekends ago Mike (and me a little) painted some stripes on one of the walls for our little guy's room. We haven't quite gotten anything else figured out as far as his room goes, but it is filling up quickly thanks to hand-me-down things we've been getting from our really nice family. We also bought a stroller and a car seat so we made our first big purchase. I'm taking a rest from purchases now, because I can make up my mind what I like or how I want to do his room. We'll see how it goes. 

These are our stripes. Mike did a great job. I just helped a teensy bit, but he's such a trooper. I love him for always being excited to hear my ideas and put them into action. 

Yesterday was our big appointment where they looked at all the body parts and we got to see the little guy in 3D. It was so cool. I wanted to hang out in there forever and just watch him move around. I was so relieved to hear that everything looks good and he's right on track with all his development. She said that he's right around 22-23 weeks in his development and weighs about 1 lb and 1 oz, so we are right on track if not a little bit ahead of schedule. I was also happy to know he has all his fingers and toes! What a miracle it is that these little ones can just grow like that! What a blessing, really.

He already has a little bit of an attitude I think. It made us laugh though. Every time the doctor would try to get a good shot of his face, we would put both hands over his face so we couldn't see. He kept snuggling right to the bottom of the uterus, (sorry uterus is kind of a gross word) so she had me laying upside down to try and get him to move out of there, but he just didn't like the idea. So she started trying to push his little head up a little and both hands would fly up to his face and he'd cover it. Then we'd go to another body part, and every time we'd go back, his little hands would go right back to his face. This was the best shot we got of his little face. You can see his little thumb up by his right eye, he had just moved his hand out of the way for one second. Maybe this is only a face a mama could love, but he just looks so sweet to me. His little nose is just so cute. We also got some pictures of his tiny feet too. He has my weird long second toe. Poor guy. Seeing him moving around and looking like a real little human definitely got us excited for July. 

Other than that everything is going really well. I've felt really blessed recently and I'm so grateful for prayer and answers to those prayers. :)

That's all for today. Hope everyone enjoys the sun!!

Baby Hancock

When I used to think about being pregnant, having our first baby, etc. I never even thought about the gender of the baby or what I preferred or which would be better and blah blah blah.

But then I was pregnant.
And I started to try and plan. And that didn't work, because obviously I don't have any control over this decision what so ever. And it really bugged me. As most things that I can't control do.

But I think I learned a good lesson. I definitely learned that in all situations the will of Heavenly Father is a whole lot more important than our own. And most of the time we should (I should) stop worrying about things, and just let Him take care of them. (I think I've said this a hundred times before.. and I probably will keep learning it over and over.)

That kind of made it sound like I didn't get what I wanted.. which isn't really true either. I didn't really care whether it was a boy or a girl, but I got all crazy trying to plan for one or the other and asking myself, "what do I feel like it is?" and doing crazy stuff like believing what everyone told me when they thought they knew what it was. Then I pretty much convinced myself that it was a girl (thanks to pretty much every woman in my family predicting that it was a girl) and then psyched myself out when the doctor thought it was a boy.

Yeah I'm a little bit crazy. And hormonal.

But we finally did find out what the baby is! And we couldn't be happier. Especially knowing that this little spirit will be so perfect in our family.

We decided to have a little "gender reveal" party to tell our families what the gender was.
I really never take pictures at parties and large events because I am easily distracted, but I did snag a picture of the cake and the oreo balls that we made. haha
In addition to this, my mom made a graph of how many boys and girls are in our family and statistically what the odds are that it was one or the other. Then she had everyone wear a little pin of what their guess was. Statistically we were supposed to have a boy, but more people guessed a girl.

Here's the cake I made for it. The inside frosting showed what it is!

 (somehow I forgot to get a picture of my little nephew cutting it or the actual inside of the cake... oops)

These are just some treats I made for the party.

And since I forgot the picture of the inside of the cake, I'll just tell you all that baby Hancock is a....

BOY!!

We're really excited, and Mike is so cute about it. I hope he is a little mini Mike so bad. Looks and all. It would be so cute. 

And last but not least, here is a super weird 19 week belly shot in my gym clothes. Woo hoo. 

(if you are wondering where by arm is don't worry, it's just up in the air.. I really wasn't quite sure how to take this picture.)

Updates!

Well...
I've been learning that I don't like hormones.
They make me feel a little bit crazy.

On Monday, I got to work. I was happy... and BAM an hour later, I was crying about everything imaginable. Things that weren't sad. Or that weren't that big of a deal. One of those being that I had a dream my mom died the night before and I kept thinking about it and crying... weird. (not that that's not sad.. it was just a dream)

The other little ordeal that has been plaguing me is sickness. I've always been pretty quick to get rid of colds or the flu or whatever. And I honestly don't get sick very often. But man, I've had the worst cold for over a week. Good news though! It's actually going away now! (fingers crossed) I spent my first night last night without waking up to the most painful swallowing in the world. It made me so happy!

But here are the bright spots...
1. I have the best husband ever. After my spontaneous crying spouts I came hope to this...

2. I'm feeling really good. I really haven't had much to complain about, now that my cold is subsiding.

3. I think I've been feeling movement! I say "think" because I could be totally off since I'm new at all this but I'm pretty sure... pretty really sure. It's been mostly in the morning time when I wake up I'll feel little flutters. But it's so nice to feel something in there! I really love it.

4. Our appointment is in 2 weeks! I thought I would for sure make Mike take me to a fetal fotos place because I wouldn't be able to handle waiting, but it's actually going by pretty fast! So I'm excited. Hopefully this time our little babe will decide not to be modest. And the next appointment means we are about halfway! So that's exciting too!


Well that's all for today. Things are good!

Introducing...

My new niece! 

She doesn't quite have a name yet, but she sure is sweet. :)

My sister arrived at the hospital Monday morning at 5:45 and this little girl was delivered by 6:00. They didn't have time to give my sister a single drug or even get her IV in. She is one tough girl. 

So happy she is here! 

Patience, Patience, Patience

That is what I lack.

I'm serious. I am not very patient at all. Especially when dealing with things I can't control. It's extremely awful. I like to know everything about every situation I'm in and I never want to wait! I hate waiting. So much.

Well I guess Heavenly Father told our child this and our child is using this against me. (or trying to help teach me.....either way)

We went in for our appointment yesterday hoping to find out what this little munchkin is. Well he or she wasn't having that. Not for a second. Not only did it wrap its legs up and not let us see a single thing, it also hid behind the placenta AND decided to sleep through the entire ultrasound and not make a single move. (Well besides it's few little leg movements when my doctor was basically banging on my uterus trying to wake the child up. That was comfortable...not.)

I would post the ultrasound picture, but it's not that cool since all you can see is the baby's head and then a big blob. Plus I don't have it with me so maybe I will do that later.

She did get a little leg shot before she gave up and said she was going to guess a boy because she thought she maybe saw a little something besides the legs in there. But she also reserved the right to change her guess.

Mike swears he saw something too, but I just can't go with a guess. I need a for sure.

So we will wait and see! My favorite...

Addison

I can't stand to pull my blog up and see my urine sticks for one more second. 

So I needed to post something new and I had to think of something that I wanted to write about. Our life is kind of crazy right now and a lot of things are so uncertain, but we've been really blessed and continue to find blessings all around us. 

One of the biggest blessings I've felt like we've experienced recently has been to have such supportive and loving families. 

We have a crazy family. 

There's no denying that. 

Instead of having two sets of parents we have four. And between the two of us we have 2 biological siblings, 8 step siblings, and 3 half siblings. Plus 6 of those are married so we can add in all their spouses. And some of them have kids so that gives us 3 nephews and 2 nieces+2 step-nephews and 4 step-nieces. 

As you can imagine, the holidays are crazy. And sometimes, we can't see them all the time, but we still love it and are grateful for each little group of family that we have. 

Lately, we've been able to spend time with my dad and step mom Tara. And my little sister Addie. That's right people-little sister. And very little. She is 19 months old. (So yes if you are wondering our siblings range from about 33 to 19 months.) Her age is about the only thing that's 19 months though.

(This was taken awhile ago.. probably about 6 months ago)

This girl has got some serious spunk. 

Not only is she the only 1 and 1/2 year old I know that has an opinion on just about everything, but she also counts to ten, talks in sentences, and sings songs. (knowing the actual words to the songs) 

This girl is the real deal. 

My dad and step mom always joke that we have a lot in common. Here are my findings so far. 

-We both LOVE shopping. 

-We both love shoes. Addie shakes when she sees some shoes that she really likes.

-Both love fruit, but are a bit picky with vegetables. 

-Both big fans of fruit leathers.

-Both love naps.

And that's all I can think of for now. Maybe I am just a bit childish and that's why we have things in common....

Anyway, I am so happy that we've been able to spend time with Addie lately. She makes me so excited to have kids. :) I wouldn't be mad if my kiddies looked like her either because she is stinking cute. 

This is her angry-ish face. haha. She was frustrated with me not giving her my phone.

This is kind of a random video but she's just so cute I had to post it. :)

I must apologize for my boring posts lately. Besides the last one, I've had nothing to seem to blog about!! Everytime I'd get on to post something, I'd realize I didn't have any pictures which makes things boring for sure, and then I'd start to write and realize that I'm just writing about myself and my life. I started to feel a little weird about that. So I mostly just decided that blogging was weird.

Because really--it kind of is. 

But then yesterday, I got a message on Facebook from my sweet little Grandma asking for my blog address. You see she lives in Oklahoma and we don't see her much. (Utah is a bit too cold for her liking) So I have decided that I will blog for my Grandma!! So she can stay updated and other family or friends who care can too! :)

The other thing I was feeling weird about was writing a ton of stuff about myself, or about how this pregnancy is going, or how sick I am, or what I'm craving, or my new years resolutions, blah blah blah. I started wondering why anyone would care about that stuff besides me. 

Until this morning when I was reading some random blogs myself. 

I suddenly realized those were the things I LOVED about reading other people's blogs. (as freaky as that might be..)

So with that all being said, I'm just gonna blog about whatever the heck is going on. As boring as it may be. For my Grandma. 

So here we go!

1/12/12

Well the last 13 weeks have definitely been interesting. I swear I've felt every emotion possible. A lot of fear, but that's only because I'm always worried about everything. A lot of excitement too, but meeting this new baby seems so far away right now that I think I am thinking more about how it's doing inside me. 

Finding out

We like babies and felt like it was getting to that time where we should get one of our own, but I was having some issues with my...well, cycle....and we didn't know how long things would take. I went to the doctor and she gave me some different medications to get things on track and in a few months walah! 

When I thought I might be preggers I took a test at the time I thought would be accurate for sure and it was negative. I just figured that it was going to take awhile to get things on track so I figured it just hadn't worked quite yet. A few days later, while waiting in line for H&M to open (of all places) I kind of had a weird feeling that I was pregnant. (I have learned not to always trust my "feelings" though--ask Mike how many times I had this sort of "feeling" haha) But this time seemed a little different, for one-I didn't feel like I was talking myself into it like I usually do. And for two-I had already kind of digested the fact that I wasn't so I wasn't thinking a ton about it. And the other thing I was feeling at that time was extreme hunger.. although I had eaten a few hours before. 

That night I started having some cramping, but it was kind of early for "cramping" to start, because I usually had that about every 2-3 months. (part of my issues) Believe me, I had done my research so I knew that cramping could be a sign of pregnancy. But I still didn't think that would be it and I didn't think a ton about it. The next morning, I remembered though and I took a test without Mike knowing thinking, "Eh what the heck.." As I watched the test, I thought maybe just maybe that second line was starting to appear. I didn't even know what to do. So I left the bathroom. I went to our room and just sat on the bed and said a prayer. I went back into the bathroom sweating and cold and looked down at the test. 

Sorry you are looking at my urine right now. But this is what the test looked like. That line was so light I didn't know whether to believe it or not. 

I don't think Mike believed it at all. haha When I went downstairs, I showed him the test and he didn't have a whole lot to say. I don't think he really could accept this little tiny line as proof. I think he said something like, "hmmm... well we'll see if something is in there huh?" We didn't talk a lot about it for the rest of the day and I resolved that I would take a different test in the morning and see if the line still appeared. 

That's when he got more excited. 

Telling Our Family

We kept it a secret for a long time, just to be safe and just talked about it when we were alone. It is a lot harder than it sounds. That's for sure. We kept it a secret for about 6 weeks and then finally decided to tell our family on Christmas. We wanted to wait a little bit longer, but Christmas just seemed like too good of a time to pass up. 

So first we bought 4 Chick Fil A calendars. (both our parents are divorced-so one for each set of parents) If you know my husband, his sister, and his mom you know that they are a Chick Fil A loving family. It's always a challenge to get as much free food from there as possible. These calendars have coupons in them so that makes them like gold. On the July page, we put a little ultrasound picture and on the due date wrote, "Baby Hancock due" in big marker letters. 

When each parent or set of parents opened the calendar, we told them to look through it at all the coupons. Some of them we had to help a little bit with things like, "oh look at the July coupon--it's a really good one!" Some of them took a little while to get it but when they did they were surprised and excited. 

We went to a doctor's appointment at 7 weeks and heard the heart beat and everything, but I felt really nervous about telling our family before our next doctor's appointment. Our appt was scheduled only a few days after Christmas. I even tried to change it to right before, but no luck. 

When we went in though, everything was just fine and our little peanut had grown from a very small blob to this! 

It was still there!! I was so relieved. And it looked like it had a head and an arm! At least it has those! (I really shouldn't joke about stuff like that..)

Our next appointment is on the 25th. I love going in because it makes me feel so much better and helps me not worry so much. 

Pregnancy Thus Far

I read blogs of pregnant women and they always have so many interesting things to say about how they are feeling and their crazy cravings and other things like that. Well I really don't have that many cool things to say about it...

I feel mostly normal. I listed a few things on my last post but here are the major things I've noticed:

-I do have to get up in the middle of the night to empty my bladder each night, and I'm constantly running to the bathroom during work. Especially since I try to drink more water. I think I'm getting used to it though. 

-I get these little pains (especially lately) that my doctor describes as my ligaments stretching because things are growing so quickly in there. I had them around 6 weeks a little bit, and they have seemed to come back in the last few days, but a little bit more painful. 

-I'm tired. Poor Mike-he has a boring wife.

-A weird one is that I used to always be able to sleep in and since I have been pregnant, I can't go back to sleep once I wake up. I don't like it. I would always sleep in until 10 or later on Sundays and that just doesn't work anymore. 

-I'm really hungry all the time. This can really be bad. I try to be really careful about what I'm eating and how much because I don't want to get too big too fast, but I have to have snacks ALL the time. 

-Between weeks 6-10 or so sweets sounded soooo disgusting to me. Which is really weird because I am all about the sugar usually. So that was really nice. Unfortunately, that went away around Christmas time and I was back to my normal sugar habits. Around the same time, I wanted pizza every night for dinner. Either that or Broccoli and Beef from Panda Express. Everything else seemed pretty disgusting. So I ate everything I wanted for about 5 days and then felt awful (literally and because I felt guilty for feeding the baby crap.. I know I'm weird) So after that, I've tried to eat pretty healthy. Most healthy foods sound really good to me anyways, and those weird pizza cravings have subsided. (Thank goodness I would have given this child clogged arteries from the get go) Here is my favorite breakfast:

If you have never had avocado toast, please try it asap! It's sooo good! Just a little butter on the bread and some salt on the top of the avocados... it's so delicious.

And this is my well stocked work drawer. The fridge at work is also stocked with tons of fruit. For some reason that is what I live off of these days. It just always sounds so good!

And that is it! Tomorrow is Friday! Woo hoo!