My Mikey

It's this boy's birthday today! He is 25 years old. I can't even believe it. 

25 seems old. 

I love him oh so much and can't imagine finding anyone in the world who treated me as sweet as he does. 

I hope he has the best birthday ever!

Happy Birthday to my Mikey!!!

(PS sorry about the ancient picture-- I don't seem to take many pictures lately... maybe because of the extra huge stomach...yeah probably because of that)

Easter Easter!

Easter is becoming one of my favorite holidays. 

I think it's primarily because of the candy. 

Mike's Pick:

My Pick:

If you haven't had those jelly beans, your life is really lacking. They are so good!!! Mike loves those eggs, but I really don't like Reese's so I am not a fan. I'm also not a fun of kissing the boy after he's eaten them. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. 

For Easter this year, we went down to St. George. We have some family there and my Brother-in-law's brother just got home from his mission so we went down to join in the festivities and see him speak in church. He did great and it was fun to hang out with everyone. I may or may not have eaten about 15 brownies over the course of our two day stay.

On our way down, we stopped in Provo and went to a little spot we found by the tabernacle. I've never been there but it was quite tasty and such a cute little spot. Lucky Provo-ites who can go here all the time. I really loved it. 

On Saturday, our nephews Breckan and Tayden did some easter egg hunting as well and got quite the loot.  

They were so cute about finding their eggs. I can't wait until we can be Easter Bunnies ourselves. It was fun going with my Sister-in-law to pick out the stuff for their Easter baskets. 

And here is a little peek at our little guy's face that we got at our last appointment. We are excited for the little pig nose it looks like he has! haha And no, the black stuff is not hair...(some people have thought it was haha) it's just where the camera cuts out. He's cute so far though. We are getting really excited! Oh and we have a name too! Wahoo!

Babies!!

This weekend I got to play with one of my favorite little babies. 

This girl has a ridiculous memory. She walked in my house, and started chanting "dance, dance" because about a month and a half ago we played Just Dance when she was over. She loved it so much. Too bad Mike wasn't home, and I can't figure out electronics. Just Dance was out of the question for us. 

So we went to Chick-fil-a instead. Woo hoo. 

We also went to the park. I was so proud of Addie and being so brave to play by herself on the big kids toys. She wasn't afraid one bit. She really liked to walk back and forth across this little bridge on the playground. So she did that about 463 times before we left. 

Then we went to the bookstore. She was in heaven. She couldn't even stand still she was so excited. 

So I watched as she played trains and looked through books. I love how smart she is. I also love how she is so independent and just loves to play by herself. Maybe it's just the age, but it was so cute to watch her entertain herself. Every once in awhile she'd glance over to make sure I was still there or she'd come show me something, but for the most part she was an independent little woman.

What a cutie. I can't wait for our next pay date!

Light in the Darkness

Anne Morrow Lindbergh said, “I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”

Without going into too much detail on a public blog, I wanted to post honestly about the past week and hope that those who know the situation can read this and know that things they have heard are not true. I believe with my whole heart that they aren't, and the situation at hand is in huge ways different than what it has been portrayed to be.
(For those who may not know what I'm talking about, I kind of laugh to myself because your mind may be thinking of the worst things possible that may be going on in our lives. Not to worry, Mike and I are happy and fine, and the baby is doing great.)

We have been impacted in extremely small ways in contrast to some of my family. Those around us have suffered much. And without much justification. The media definitely twists things into something very ugly. They don't know the facts or the background, so they focus on rumors. Which is so sad.

But there is light in the darkness and I think that's the most important thing to focus on. In suffering or watching others suffer, I've really been able to feel closer to the Savior. To catch a small glimpse of some of the pain he must have gone through for all of us. For that I'm grateful. I'm also grateful that hard things bring people closer together. I've watched so many in my family move their concern from themselves to others and it's been really touching to see the how much support helps. And to those who have been so sweet and so supportive, thank you. :)

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!