Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice- 16 Weeks

It's a girl!

I can't believe that we are going to have a baby girl!  J and I both really thought that we would only get boys and while I would have been thrilled with another boy, it is just so fun to get a girl!  We didn't want to wait until the anatomy ultrasound (usually done at 20 weeks) so we decided to go to an ultrasound place that specializes in gender reveals and 4D ultrasounds at 16 weeks.  My mom was in town so she was able to come too and find out with us which was fun!  The woman told us she was 1000% sure that it is a girl and showed us several pictures confirming that. I loved seeing all of her movements on such a giant screen.  She is a very active little one who apparently has super long legs. :)  

G isn't too sure about this pink stuff :)

Sweet Baby Girl!

I showed my doctor the ultrasound pictures at my 16 week appointment and she agreed that it is almost certainly a girl.  J was shocked and a bit terrified to hear that we are having a girl because as one of four boys he feels like he doesn't know anything about raising a girl.  After the initial shock wore off, he has adjusted to the idea and I know that the instant he sees her, he will be totally wrapped around her tiny fingers :)  J left for a bachelor party in Vegas the day after we found out the gender so my mom and I did some shopping and got plenty of cute ruffles, lace, and cardigans for our sweet little lady!

16 Weeks- just the hint of a bump

Sweet Baby Girl's new clothes!

Here is an update on my pregnancy:

How far along: 16 weeks

Baby is the size of a: avocado

Total Weight Gain: +1 pound

Maternity Clothes: No, I still fit into my jeans but I think that is about to end.  I am definitely popping out a little further than I did at the same point with G.

Sleep: I slept really well except for the nights that G had trouble with teething.

Best Moment of the Week:  finding out that we are having a GIRL!!! And also getting to see her move around on a huge screen.  Apparently she has extremely long legs and she is definitely a mover :)

Miss Anything: A margarita would be nice but nothing too bad.

Movement:  I feel occasional little flutters but not the big movements yet.  It's still fun to feel her, especially since the flutters don't hurt like the later stage kicks :)

Food Cravings: I would really love some good queso!

Anything Making you Queasy or Sick: Nope!

Symptoms:  Nothing major yet.  I have occasional ligament pains and I feel a bit chubby but so far, so good!

Have you started to show yet: There is a hint of a bump but not too much yet.

Looking Forward To: Decorating a girl nursery!

Surprise!

Our house is about to get a whole lot more crazy!  We are very excited to announce that we are expecting Sweet Baby M #2 around November 2nd!  We weren't actually planning on having two kids so close together but we couldn't be more thrilled that this is the way it's working out!  This does now mean that we are trying to sell our house, buy a new house in Oklahoma,and move to a new state with everything that goes along with that all while pregnant!  Life has gotten a bit crazy for us!

How We Found Out
Since we weren't trying to get pregnant (I was actually on the mini-pill), I wasn't watching for pregnancy symptoms.  I went to visit my parents in March and the night I got there I threw up but I had a bad case of bronchitis so I thought I had just coughed hard enough to throw up.  I had several more incidents during the week where I felt nauseous but it was always while I was coughing so I didn't really think anything of it.  The last day we were in Utah, I very briefly had the feeling that there was too much saliva in my mouth which was my first pregnancy symptom with Grayson and then I threw up again.  I started thinking about when I had last had confirmation that I wasn't pregnant and realized that while I couldn't pin down an exact date, it had been quite a while.  I flew from Salt Lake to Sacramento for my grandpa's 80th birthday and didn't have any more symptoms so I wasn't too worried but the thought was still in the back of my head that maybe I should take a pregnancy test just to be sure.  When I got home from Sacramento, I realized that I still had an extra pregnancy test from when we were trying with G so I decided that I might as well take it just to reassure myself that I couldn't possibly be pregnant.  I truly thought it was going to come back negative so when the two lines (which meant pregnant) immediately popped up I had a little moment of panic.  J was out in the field in the middle of nowhere so text messaging was our only form of communication for several more days and I didn't feel like that was something I should tell him in a text so I called my sister (she is an awesome secret keeper and support system) so that I could share my crazy news with someone else.  The next day I took a second pregnancy test, which was of course also positive and then I went to my doctor's office to confirm with a blood test.  Once that made it "official" I just had to wait for J to get home so that I could tell him in person.
When he was home I said "Remember how you wanted our kids to be close together in age and I wanted them more like three years apart? Well it looks like you will be getting your way!"  He asked me about ten times if I was being serious and once he finally believed me he got excited but also a bit stressed out by all of the things that we had coming up.  At that point he was still three weeks away from his job conference so we knew that he would be getting out of the Marine Corps but we didn't know where or if he would get a job next.  It put a little more pressure on him that way and also made insurance a much more important thing for us.  He started asking me questions about if we would need another crib and how far apart exactly would the two kids be.  It was definitely a lot to process but we are thrilled that we will get to have two kids so close in age!

I think that while it will make life more hectic for us for a few years, it will also be great for the kids to grow up so close and hopefully be good friends!  We had to wait about a month for my first ultrasound before we could get a due date since I hadn't been tracking cycles but at that ultrasound the doctor told us that November 2nd is our official due date.  It was so awesome to see the little one on the screen! He or she is quite the little mover!  We had a hard time getting a good ultrasound picture because the little one was squiggling around so much.  Now that the job issue is settled and we know we have good insurance and a good income a lot of the stress that we were feeling has gone away.  So far this pregnancy I have only had a little nausea which was pretty much gone by week 10 and I was extra tired until about week 12 but other than that I have been very blessed to be symptom free!  Hopefully I will be blessed with another easy pregnancy but only time will tell.

A Few Questions Answered
I know when I hear that a couple accidentally got pregnant there are always a few questions that run through my head so I'm going to answer those here :)
Were you trying to get pregnant?  No this was a big, exciting surprise!
Were you on birth control? Yes I was on the mini-pill since I was finishing up breast feeding.
Do you not know how to use birth control? Actually I do and I am pretty anal retentive about taking it but when you aren't breast feeding full time the mini pill goes down to only being 92% accurate.  I didn't want to switch to the regular pill until I was 100% finished with breast feeding as it is not good for the baby.  It still had a 92% chance of preventing pregnancy so I really feel like this was meant to be and is the Lord's timing for our family :)
Exactly how far apart will the kids be?  On my due date they would be 16 1/2 months apart.  I had Grayson two weeks early so there is a definite chance that they could be a little closer than that.
Did you want this baby? Yes!  Absolutely 100% we are very excited for this baby!  We had planned on having a two to three year split but we definitely wanted a second child and we are totally excited for this one!

We appreciate all thoughts and prayers for a healthy baby and pregnancy!  We will be finding out the gender on the 19th so we are very much looking forward to that!

And we are Moving to...

After ten years in the Marine Corps (6 active duty and 4 as a reservist in college), today was officially J's last day at work as a Marine.  He won't officially be out of the Marine Corps until July 1st but he had a lot of leave saved up and he is allowed to take it all now so he will never go back to the base.  It's a little bittersweet because there were a lot of things that he really loved about the Marine Corps but I think that we are both really looking forward to the next chapter in our lives.  I am very proud of my husband for the service that he has given.  His Marines honored him today with a Navy Com award and a personalized chest (I'm not sure what else to call it so see the pictures) that they made for him.  We have quite a collection of plaques and a wooden AAV model from different units that he worked with but this is definitely the biggest gift that he has received!

Receiving his Navy Com

Shaking hands with the Colonel

The chest his marines presented him with

We are both extremely grateful to have been able to spend the last five years at Camp Pendleton in beautiful San Diego!  We will definitely miss this place a lot.  It has been amazing to have the beach so close to us and also to have perfect weather.  But all things come to an end and now we are looking forward to moving to our new home in..... Enid Oklahoma!  Oklahoma is not a place that I ever pictured myself living and when J first mentioned it I was totally opposed to it but the more I thought about it and did research, the more I got exited about the possibility.  There are definitely a lot of good things about small towns in the mid west! It seems like a great place to raise children.  I have never been to Oklahoma and J has only been for his interview so it will definitely be something new for us.  I feel like since I am from a very small town in Wyoming it shouldn't be a terrible adjustment but going from San Diego to Oklahoma will definitely be a shock.  We will be flying out to do a house hunting trip next week so I am looking forward to seeing where we will be for the next few years!
J was very lucky (though it was largely based on how awesome he is :) ) and he was offered a great job in Enid.  It is such a relief to have the job search over with and to really feel like this is the opprotunity that he was meant to take.  I prayed that we would know which job was the best for J and for our family and I really feel like this is the one that will be the best fit.
J will be starting his new job the last week of June so we don't have much time before we will be moving.  I am so glad that J has the next seven weeks off of work so that we can spend a lot of family time together enjoying the end of our time in California!  It is a little stressful having to move with a baby to a place we have never been with J starting a new career but we have been blessed through everything so I know this will turn out well too!

10 Months

Grayson is ten months old!  Our little man had a lot of big developments this last month!  He is now crawling everywhere, he pulls himself up on anything he can, and he is starting to stand.  He is keeping me very busy!  Our family life has been pretty busy too as J had a hiring conference in North Carolina that he went to followed by follow up interviews that he has been travelling for.  He already has one very good offer and now we are just waiting to see what happens with a few other companies before we decide what is best for our family.  G and I were also able to spend time with my best friend Jessie who came to visit and  then our whole family did a very quick trip to Arizona to celebrate my father in law's 60th birthday.

We started out G's 10th month with some much needed family time after J had been gone for a few weeks.  G was SO happy to have his daddy back! We took some walks on the beach and to the park and then spent a lot of time trying to get J prepped for his marathon of interviews.  At the start of April we dropped J off at the airport and wished him luck!  He ended up doing twelve interviews in two days!

The day after J left, my best friend from Phoenix flew in to keep G and me company while J was gone.  It was so much fun to see her and to have her spend a lot of time with G because we had only had a few hours here and there since he was born.  We had lots of fun catching up, eating delicious unhealthy food and taking some pictures of G.  Jessie is a very good photographer so it was fun to have her take some pictures of G and me.  I wish that J would have been here too so that we could have gotten some good family pictures on the beach!  We were so grateful that she came to visit and it made the stress of waiting to hear how things were going for J in North Carolina a lot easier to handle.  We hope to see her again soon!

J returned having several companies that wanted to do follow up interviews with him so that was comforting.  We are so grateful to already have a job offer on the table so that has taken away a huge amount of stress.  It is very comforting not to have to stress about what will happen next.  In the military you have to apply for the end of your service well in advance so you can't really have a job lined up when you get out so there is a lot of uncertainty for families that are transitioning out.  As much as we would love to be able to move close to family, we are going to move to wherever the best job is for J.  We are very grateful to Cameron Brooks (the head hunter that J used that only works with military officers transitioning to civilian careers) for making this transition much less stressful than it would have been on our own!
Between the job conference and follow up interviews we took a very quick trip to Phoenix to celebrate my father- in-law's 60th birthday.  We were happy to have G spend some time with J's side of the family!  We spent the whole time with family and didn't even tell friends that we were in town.  We were able to get G in the pool for the first time since Scottsdale was ninety-five degrees.  He absolutely loved it!  He was such a happy little guy in the water.  His grandma got him a little raft thing so that he could float around and he was thrilled with it!  We enjoyed a nice party that honored Jim and then as quickly as we came we had to head home.  We hope to see everyone again soon!

At 10 months Grayson:
- weighs 21 lbs.  He is a chunk! I get an arm workout carting him around!
- is around 30 inches long but he is far too wiggly for me to get an accurate measurement at this point!
-wears 6-12 month clothes.
-crawls all over the place and is in to everything!  Something clicked for him while Jessie was visiting and he started crawling to everything.  Last month he would occasionally crawl across a room but then not do it again for several days.  Now he is totally unstoppable!  It has definitely made my life more chaotic but he is very happy with his new independence!
- pulls himself up on every piece of furniture he can find.  He will crawl straight across a room to get to something he can pull himself up on.  He always looks so proud when he gets up so it's really cute!  He does sometimes forget to hold himself and then he falls and gets mad.
- tries to stand up and can do so for about 5 seconds before he falls over.
- no longer likes the jumperoo now that he can crawl and stand.
- loves to eat pretty much anything that is put in front of him!  He eats small pieces of chicken, turkey, cheese, fruit, some vegetables, eggs, and most anything else someone puts in front of him.  I am so grateful not to have a picky eater!
-usually sleeps well but he has had some rough nights this month.  I'm hoping we can get back to 12 hours every night consistently soon.
-loves to pull all of the dvd's out of the dvd bin, dump all of the toys out of his toy box, and enjoys playing with balls.
-is a very laid back baby!  He is such a sweet little guy who is hardly ever in a bad mood!  Usually if he is crying it is only because he is tired or hungry and once the problem is solved he goes back to being sweet.  We are so blessed by this little man on a daily basis!