April in a Nutshell.

This month has been a doozy. We moved, I had concerts, my parents came in town and it was a VERY busy work month. This makes for a very tired mama-to-be.

I was going to go into the details of the month but basically what it comes down to is:

 I LOVE my in-laws. We had so many people show up to help us move. The night before moving day Matt's oldest brother came over and helped us move the bedroom set to his parent's house. On moving day, we had people showing up as early as 7:30 to help us. We had 13 people show up and were able to get everything moved by 10:00 AM. We are so grateful to have had that help it made a stressful day so much easier.

I LOVE my husband! Matt has been working tirelessly to get everything done, whether it was packing, moving, organizing, cleaning our old apartment (which this week alone he's spent about 7 hours deep cleaning) I have felt so terrible that I can't be as much help as I would like, or as I should, but he just tells me to sit, or lay, to not over-do it.

I LOVE my family. My parents came in town for my choir concert. They drove down to bring me all the stuff I had left at their house. I loved having them in town. I loved playing games and telling stories and going out to eat. I love that they make the trip down here to hear me sing and how much joy they get out of that.

In other news. We have set the appointment to find out the gender of the wee babe. May 11th we will go to the doctor. Matt's family does dinner on the third Sunday of the month and we realized that the third Sunday in May is our anniversary, it's also the Sunday after we'd find out, so we decided to not find out at the appointment, but to get it in an envelope and open it with his family. I can't believe in 3 weeks we'll know what we're having.

I think we are having a boy. All of Matt's brothers have had boys first. All of my symptoms indicate boy, AND icing on the cake, last week I had a dream that we were having a boy. If we have a girl I will be very surprised, but no matter what we will be so excited to just finally KNOW.

Now the most exciting part. Last night we were laying in bed. I always fall asleep with my hands on my belly. I'm not showing much but when I lay down is when I feel pregnant, my stomach doesn't go in like it normally would and I can feel a little bump. I also know that I'm getting closer to being able to feel the baby move so when we first lay down to fall asleep I pay very close attention to what I'm feeling to see if anything stands out. There was one time last week I felt like I may have felt the baby move but it was so slight and I was half asleep. Last night I was laying there and Matt reached over and put his hand on my belly. I put my hands on top of his and just told him, "even if I do feel something, you probably won't feel it. It will just be internal" and we just laid there and started to fall asleep. Just a couple of minutes later there was a very noticeable kick or something. I gasped and Matt said, "Was that???" as I said, "did you feel that?" I LOVE that we felt the first movement together. I love that last night he just happened to decide to put his hand on my belly. We will always have that moment and I love that we share it.

April has been so busy, but we love our new place. I'm 4 weeks further along, and everything is starting to happen. I can't wait until I start showing and all this weight gain has more of  a shape. I can't wait for all that will happen in this next month. We have our babymoon, my first Mother's Day, our first Anniversary and finding out the gender of our baby.

Life is pretty much perfect.

Our First Home

This week Matt and I are moving out of our apartment into our friend's town house.
We started packing up on Saturday and man I feel like such a light weight. I still don't "Feel" pregnant, or as my friend Shakira so eloquently stated "You don't feel like you know what it feels like to feel like you feel pregnant" Exactly, Shakira, exactly. BUT, when packing I got about 6 boxes filled (I had to take about a 15 minute break in the middle) and I was done. I'd get super light headed any time I stood up and just knew that was about all I could take for the day. Baby was tired.
In that hour we were able to get a lot of stuff packed up. I got all the stuff off the walls (which was sad because it took us about 6 months before we actually started hanging things) I got all of the kitchen stuff boxed up that we knew we wouldn't use (anything that won't go in a microwave) Matt got a lot of the stuff in the office cleaned out. Our goal is, when people come to help us move on Saturday (fingers crossed that we get a lot of help) that all they will have to do is move boxes from the apartment to the truck and truck to town home. We want everything done and ready to be loaded.

Anyway, the point of this post is. We are moving out of our first home together. I'm  sure every married person out there remembers their "first home". They probably remember the address, the rent, the stories from that time, but that won't be the case for every house we live in. This is our first, and we are moving out.

Don't get me wrong we are excited to leave this place. Our smoking neighbors. The dirty carpet. The commute. The random yelling fights and calls to the cops (although I admit we open the doors and windows for those things so we can listen in and hear the juice). The stinkin speed bumps every two feet. The long walks to the dumpster just to take the trash out. The volume of the dishwasher. The lack of space.

There are a lot of things we are ready to leave, but still, it's bittersweet. I'll never forget the first day we moved in. We weren't married yet, but Matt was living there for a couple weeks before I moved in. We walked in with our last load of stuff and Matt goes, "Should I carry you over the threshold?" I said, "Do you want to?" he knodded and said, "kinda" and he picked me up and carried me in.

This was the first place I cooked a meal for my husband. It housed our first furniture purchases. This is where I learned that Matt is a lot cleaner than I am, and Matt learned that I don't like when he leaves the shower curtain open after a shower.

This is where we were when we found out we were having a baby. This was where we had our first... argument. This was where we had our first Christmas tree, tiny as it was, and our first Christmas as husband and wife.

As ready as we are to leave, it was a great first home. It's always crazy to box up your life and take it somewhere new, but I just think about all the firsts that are going to happen in our second home and I cannot wait.

Here's to firsts, and new adventures.
Leave a comment and tell me about your first home.

End of the First Trimester and Beginning of Irrational (maybe rational) fears

Saturday marked the start of my second trimester.
As far as pregnancy goes I think I've had it pretty easy. That being said, I have had three colds in the two months I've known I was pregnant and that has gotten really old.
I am starting to show a little bit. Not so much that people would notice, but I can see a little bump.
I am so excited for this new trimester. This is where I feel like all the stuff starts. I'll feel the baby move, I'll really start to show, we'll find out what we're having... so many things that are right around the corner.
We move in about a week and a half and I'm so excited to set up a nursery and start getting our house ready for a baby.
In the beginning I was SURE we were having a girl, then after the last ultrasound I was even more sure we were having a boy, and now I just have no idea. I'm so excited to find out and to be able to start planning. I'm hoping my doctor will let us come in to find out the gender the Friday before our vacation which will be May 1st. I will be at 18 weeks at that point. That is only about three weeks away. I can't believe how quickly this is all happening.
Cravings: I have had a solid craving for salty things. I can't get enough chips and salsa, I love pickles and pepperoncinis, and lately I have had a large craving for thick cut french fries and fry sauce.
I typically have a sweet tooth, but not lately. I have Easter treats at my desk that have been there for about 2 weeks and I barely touch them. Normally, they'd last less than a week. Although I will say, I do crave popsicles or Bahama Bucks (shaved ice).

As for the fears.
I watch a couple of vlogs and in one of them the family was doing an Easter Egg hunt. The mom went with the three year old little boy. It was a city-wide thing and it was at a baseball field. She showed him the field and said, "See alllll those eggs out there? You want to run run run and grab as many as you can with all the other kids" The countdown happened and he went running. He just ran, and ran past about 12 eggs. His mom is laughing so hard reminding him to pick them up. He got knocked down a couple of times, and at the end there are no eggs to be seen but he is just running his little heart out, all over the place. He ended up with 3 eggs and was SO disappointed. My heart broke. "I only got 3.." the look on his face... I was in shambles.
Last night Matt and I watched Finding Neverland, and there is a scene in the movie where this adorable little boy is so sad and crying and I could NOT handle it.
My sister posted a picture of my nephew Nixon who is 7, they went to Lagoon and he was STILL too short to ride the big kid rides. In the picture Brock (his dad) is bending down talking to him, and the look on Nixon's face was too much for me. I couldn't even look at it.
These are not my children, but I put myself in the shoes of the parents and it makes me break. I won't be able to handle my kids getting hurt, being sad, getting their feelings hurt, getting their hearts broken. Just thinking about it makes me ache.
How do you parents out there do it? I'm sincerely asking because that is one part of parenting I don't think I can prepare for. I just want my kid to be happy forever and never hurt.
I know we have no control over this, but how do you handle it as parents.
Jennie? Mom and Dad? Comment!

These are the thoughts of a 14 week pregnant chick.

Baby Update, 11 Weeks

As of Saturday I am 11 weeks pregnant. 2 weeks left in the first trimester and so far all is well.
This first trimester was not how I expected. I would get queasy at nights, if it had been too long since my last meal, but that was about it. Although I did have a cold, and a bad one, for about the entire time, I wasn't very throwy-uppy. I'll take stuffy noses and sneezing/coughing over having nausea and throwing up.

That being said, I have been sick (sedentary) and eating a lot and keeping it down, so the poundage has started to increase. I've already gained about 8 pounds, although I haven't gained any weight in the last two(ish) weeks. I'm starting to feel more myself again so I am anxious to get to the gym and start working out (safely).

This baby is about all Matt and I can talk about. We are both so excited we can barely contain it. I start to feel bad because it's not just with each other that we can't stop talking about it, so sorry to those of our friends who have to hear it. The other day we were laying in bed and I said, "Do you realize that our baby already has all the genes that will make up it's appearance? It already has one of our noses, and one of our chins..." For some reason that just blew my mind to think, our baby is all decided. I cannot wait to see which traits of ours the baby gets.

This first trimester has been nerve wracking. Since I haven't had the "typical" symptoms, or at least the ones I expected, I was always worried something would go wrong. I had dreams about miscarrying all the time. I was just counting down the days until our next appointment when I could see our little lime and know that all was well.

That appointment was yesterday. Matt wasn't able to come because he had to work, which I assured him was FINE. I don't want him to think I expect him at every appointment for the next 7 months.
So I got to the appointment and my doctor (who already is so awesome) and I talked for a while. He said all my blood tests were great, that everything looked perfect. Then we did the ultra-sound. He told me this time frame for the ultra sound is his favorite. It's the first time the moms see an actual baby instead of just a blob, and their excitement gets him every time. Then, up popped my baby.
For the love of Pete that child is cute. It was moving all around, I could see it stretch it's legs and move it's arms all over tarnation. Then the Doc pushed on my belly a few times and that baby went into ninja mode, kicking and pushing back. My baby doesn't take crap from nobody! I could not stop laughing, it was just the best thing to see. So crazy that all that is going on in my belly right now. I wished so badly that Matt could have seen it, just because I knew he would have wanted to be there for that. Neither of us knew this appointment would include an ultrasound. The doctor said the baby is growing normally, I'm still set for an October 3rd due date. He said, obviously he can't know everything right now, but from what he can see, that is a perfect baby :)

I called Matt immediately after and was telling him all about it. I could hear his smile through the phone. I love that I have someone who is so excited to share this with me. I feel very blessed to have Matt in my life, and for the father he will be to our children.

So there you have it. 11 week update. Our little 2 inch baby is perfect.

 

 

We're Having a Baby, My Baby and Me...

One thing that Matt and I say a lot these days is, "I can't believe all these things are happening to me."
We got married older than we thought we would and we both went through phases in our lives where the idea of having a spouse and a family was, maybe, not in the cards for us. So to now know that we are going to be having a baby, this year, is some kind of wonderful.

When we first were dating and talking about marriage we both talked about how long we'd want to wait before having kids. Matt's first response was, "No less than 2 years" My first response was "No longer than a year"  As we got closer to being married it changed to being a year, for both of us, then I went to... maybe 6 months? After we got married and I was on the lovely birth control I went to, "Well I mean really, we probably won't get pregnant right away, so we may as well just get off birth control now and see where the chips fall" Matts response was, "For the first time in my life I am perfectly happy, and though yes I will be so happy when we have kids, I just want a little bit of time where this is our life. Once we even start trying everything will change, we will have a new focus, so for now I just want this, us." I could not argue with that, nor did I want to. So we said we'd take the discussion off the table for 2 months and we will reassess.

In September I knew it was time for me. I told him I always had this fear that it would take me a while to get pregnant and though that may not be the case, I'd rather risk it and get pregnant right away, knowing we are in a good position to have a baby right now, than wait and have a hard time getting pregnant and wonder if I would have if we tried earlier. We both agreed that it was time, and we were both immediately so excited/scared.

After about 3 months, I was sure something was wrong with me. I was reading about PCOS, which is a syndrome where you very irregularly ovulate, you can absolutely get pregnant with it, but it's a lot harder because you can't time it. I had like ALL of the symptoms so I decided I should get tested for it, just to be safe.

My doctor treated me like I was silly and advised me to not "google" anything when it comes to pregnancy. She said she was first going to test me for an infection, which is what she always does first. A lot of times you can have an infection that fights off the sperm and that is the only issue and  antibiotics can clear that right up. We then set up a follow-up appointment for 2 weeks later.

About a week and a half later she called me and told me that I did have an infection and got me a perscription. So I just said, "alright, good to know, fingers crossed for next month" I still decided to keep my appointment for the PCOS test, just in case.

The day before my appointment I decided to take a pregnancy test. It was also the day AFTER Matt's birthday. I KNEW I wasn't pregnant, but I was late (which is not at all abnormal for me) and with the appointment the next day I figured I may as well. The test came up positive. It was about 6:30 in the morning and Matt was still in bed. I knew it had to be wrong. There was not one part of me that believed that. So I didn't tell Matt.

On the way to work I called my Dr and asked if the medication she prescribed could give me a false positive, her response, "I've never heard of that happening before".
When I got to work I took another test, a different brand this time, also positive. Holy crap!

I contemplated waiting until after my appointment the next day to tell Matt, but I knew I wouldn't be able to wait. I text my sister who was on a beach in cancun because I HAD TO TELL SOMEONE!!! She was freaking out!

I knew I wouldn't see Matt until about 10 that night and it was about 10 in the morning at this point. I was prepared for the longest day ever.

On my lunch break I went to walmart and bought a little, gender nuetral, baby blanket.

After work, after my ukulele lesson, after my RS meeting, and when Matt finally got home from the gym he came and sat down with me on the couch. He saw a box for him and he said, "did you get me another gift?" (remember his birthday was the day before) I said, "Yeah, open it". He opened it and saw the blanket and just said, with a smirk, "What is this?" I said, "Lift it up". He did and underneath were both pregnancy tests. "Are you serious?" "Is this real?" "For real?" "You are?" I just (almost emotionless, because it was still hard for me to believe) said, "yep"

We only talked about it for a second because I told him, "I don't want to really talk about this until the dr confirms tomorrow" but he could not stop staring at me, which I loved.

The next day, I nervously went to my appointment. I had an ultrasound and after about 15 minutes of silence the tech said, "I'm just going to get a doctor" then saw the look on my face, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "There is nothing to be worried about". She came back in alone and said, "You are definitely pregnant. It's too early to tell how far, but I can see the gestational sac and I can see that there is bloodflow to a heart."

I could not believe it. Now it was starting to sink it. I am going to have a baby!!

The next day I got the worst cold of my life, and couldn't take anything for it. So that was awesome.

Last week, on Feb 17th, we had our first Ultrasound with my OB. It wasn't a long appointment, they did my bloodwork, and I had the Ultrasound. I had an idea how far along I was, but knew with how irregular I am it could be off by a week, so I wasn't sure if we'd hear a heartbeat.
There the baby was, we could see the little heart flutter and my eyes filled with tears. There was our baby. OUR BABY! Then he put the sound on and I could hear it. I could hear the heartbeat! The most amazing thing I've ever been a part of.

The Dr confirmed that I was just over 7 weeks with a due date of October 3rd.

Now came the discussion of how/when to tell our families.

My sister's birthday was on a Sunday and my nephew's was the week after that, so I knew they'd be having the family over. So I sent Nixon a gift with a card from "Matt, Julia and Baby Halls" I told my sister to have him open my gift last (so as to not steal any thunder) and to have him read the card. She Facetimed me and that was so fun to watch, he read the card all confused "Baby Halls???" but my family wigged out.

(for some reason I could NOT post the picture of the card... annoyed)

Tuesday (2/24) Was Matt's Dad's birthday and all the adults (that could make it) were going out to dinner. I wrote up a card that said, "We got you a gift, but it won't be delivered until October" Then the inside said, "Happy Birthday Grandpa" "Love Matt, Julia and Grandbaby #30" Yes this will be #30 on Matt's side. His dad read it kind of soberly, but his sister Heather was sitting next to him reading it with him and freaked, which caused the rest of the table to freak out as well.

We are so lucky to have such amazing families that love us so much and will SO LOVE this baby. We are very blessed.

As for me, I've been unnervingly ok. I have the "What to expect" app and every day I get emails of discussion groups of other moms that are having October babies, and sometimes it's comforting and other times it's unnerving. I keep hearing that a lack of symptoms can mean there is something wrong, but it also could be totally fine. That being said I'm not completely without symptoms. I get dizzy really easily. I do get queasy if I wait too long to eat, especially in the evenings. My boobs are super sore and growing all the time (just what I need). Every time I do feel sick, there is a part of me that is relieved. One night I felt really sick and Matt said, "I'm sorry you don't feel well" and I said, "Is it weird that I'm glad to be feeling this way? I like feeling pregnant and I don't very often" His response, "You're no weirder than any other pregnant woman" Thanks... I guess...

I am excited to start showing, I'm excited to start planning, I'm excited to know what we're having. We can't stop talking about, what it will look like, what it will act like, who it will take after, what traits of mine will it get that I don't even realize I have. We talk about what our lives could be like in 5, 10, 20 years. Before we got pregnant we had the names picked out, but now that we are pregnant we have no idea. Well we have a lot of ideas, but not settled on anything.

We are having a baby. There is a little raspberry inside me right now with a beating heart, and starting to form arms and legs. We are having a baby!!!

Valentine's Day

As this holiday approached I heard many different attitudes, but seemingly the most common is, "Such a dumb holiday, such a waste of money."
Even before I had a Valentine, I loved the idea of the holiday. I love that there is a day set aside just to show the person you love that you love them. Of course, people will argue that you "should" do that every day, but the fact is that we don't. We don't spend enough time loving. So I'm glad there is a day for it.
The year I moved to Arizona I wrote a blog post about just that. It's here if you want to read it. I was a single girl, about to move away and for the first time, it hit me what the holiday was for. Little did I know, that would be my last lonely Valentine's Day.
I love that we have an excuse to get all gussied up, go out on the town and just be openly and annoyingly in love.
I love that I have a husband who likes to be romantic and surprise me.
That being said, our plans for Valentine's changed last minute. We had been planning for weeks to go camping Friday night and then double date with our friends on Saturday. On Thursday they text us and asked us if we wanted to go to the desert on Saturday and eat, roast mallows, ride quads and what not with some other friends. We agreed and decided camping the night before would be a headache.
Matt asked me if I wanted to make Friday our Valentine's Date and what I wanted to do. He then got a smirk on his face and said, "I have an idea, but I'm not telling you"
All day I wondered what it could be, where we were going to go. I got home from work to a bouquet of lilies (my favorite) and a card with a coupon for a spa day. I found Matt in a back room ironing a dress shirt,  he told me this place had a dress code, so I had to change.
We drove to Phoenix, to the Wrigley Mansion (you know, Wrigley Gum) He signed up for a month trial membership so we could get in for dinner. We had an AMAZING and expensive dinner on a balcony, then we toured the mansion which was so fascinating.
Then we went to Yogurtland (super fancy) got dessert and came home. The whole time we reminisced on different things and commented on how much we love that we have stories, memories and inside jokes that only we know about.
My whole life I wanted a Valentine, I always wanted to celebrate this holiday and now I have the most wonderful man to share it with.
I love love.

New Year's in Utah

This year, Matt and I had the opportunity to be in Utah for New Year's weekend.
My group, Mountain Blue, was invited to perform at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building as part of the New Year's Eve celebration in Salt Lake. I was flown up for it, and asked Matt to come with me so we wouldn't be apart for NYE.
We flew in Wednesday morning. It was 3 degrees when we landed, which was just a slap in the face for both of us.

We flew separately so Jennie picked me up from the airport and we went to breakfast with her kids while we waited for Matt. We picked Matt up around 11 and met up with my parents so we could borrow a car.
That first day we went to lunch with my friends Scott and Mary, who live in Missouri and were in town for the holidays.
Later my group met with us at the condo and we practiced before our concert. Hard to believe it had been about 2 years since we had a show together. It was nice to sing with them again.
We had to be at the JSMB at 7 for a sound check so we all drove over together.
It was so fun to be downtown on New Year's Eve. There was so much energy going on, and it was even MORE fun to be performing for it all.
Once our concert started the room was already standing room only. I was surprised to see so many people. It was a great show and a great excuse to get together. I secretly hope they invite us back each year. I'd love to ring in the new year that way again.
Here is a link to our final song of the concert, and a crowd fave :)

 

                                                                Us during sound check

 After the concert Matt and I went back to my parent's condo. Our other plans had been cancelled and my mom was beyond thrilled to have Matt and me spend New Years with them. My parents made tamales, chicken wings, taquitos, egg nog floats, we had cookies, candy and snacks. You might think that is too much for 4 people, but nay.
We rang in the New Year playing 9's with my parents and almost immediately after midnight we went to bed.
New Year's Day started off right, playing wallyball with the regulars. Always a good time.
My group was supposed to record that night, but the studio flooded so instead Matt and I went to dinner with Jennie and Brock and watched some football.

Jan 2nd Matt and I had planned to go snowboarding. We got all our gear together and headed up the mountain.

On our first run we had just gotten off the lift and coasted down a little ways. I had fallen (because I suck) and just stood back up. Matt was about 10 feet away from me, so I started slowly gliding to him. I knew I wasn't going to have time to turn and stop so I just ran into him. He was facing away from me, so my running into him made him fall backward onto me. As we both fell back I twisted my body to protect myself and he landed just right on my ribs. I felt a pop and knew I wasn't getting back up.

I just laid there, so mad... we had JUST started. It was our FIRST run. I started to cry, in anger, and man oh man that hurt, so I had to stop myself. Matt helped me sit up and then went to get ski patrol (the lift was walking distance away so it wasn't too bad for him) sitting up was extremely painful and I knew I was going to pass out, so I laid back down and all went quiet. Ski patrol came over and loaded me up on the sled and skiied me down the mountain. I'm just glad I was covered from head to toe as he skiied me down. Listening to skiiers asking, "is that person dead?" and saying "sucks to be that person" was bad enough without them knowing who I was.

 

After I was checked out at the clinic Matt and I (thankfully) got a full refund and went and grabbed some lunch.
I had recording that night so we just hung out in the valley until I had to go to that.
Since we missed the first day of recording we had scheduled an extra two hours to our two remaining days. Let me tell you, 6 hours of recording with a cracked rib isn't awesome.

We were able to get all our songs down, and it will be quite the story to tell forever more.

Since the studio flooded we had to make due at our producer's house.

Saturday was more recording, and then we met up with the adults in my family for dinner, and then back to the condo for "games". Mom, Jennie and I played 9's which I had to quit after one game.

They kept making me laugh, and I've learned that laughing is what causes me the most pain. So I went in with the boys and watched the UFC fights for a bit before going to bed.
Sunday morning we got packed up and headed home, to warm and sunny Arizona.
It was so nice to be home with my family. I've been lucky to have had a lot of chances to see them over the last 2 months, which I'm grateful for because as of now we don't have plans to head to Utah any time soon.
2014 was the best year of my life, without doubt, and I got to start 2015 with my husband. This year is going to be even better. I can feel it.