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!

9 Months

Baby Grayson is 9 months old!  I can't believe how fast the last 3/4 of a year have gone by!  This last month was another travel filled one for G and me.  We started the month by trying to soak up as much daddy time as we could before J headed out into the field for the last time of his Marine Corps career.  Once he left, G and I flew up to Utah to visit my family for a week and then we flew from Salt Lake to Sacramento to go to my Grandpa M's 80th birthday celebration.  It was a great trip and now we are happy to be settled back in Southern California for what is likely to be our last few months here.

J will officially be getting out of the Marine Corps on July 1st so this month was his last field op that took him away from us.  We have been very lucky to have him around so much since G was born but it will really be nice not to have to go multiple weeks without seeing him at a time.  During the first four years that he was active duty, he was gone at least half of the time so it was truly a blessing to have him move to a job where he only had to go out once a quarter for a few weeks for the last year and a half.  We are even more excited about the prospect of having him around even more and also never having a deployment looming over us ever again.  The Marine Corps has been very good to us and we are so grateful for the opportunities and especially the friendships that we have made with this lifestyle but we are also looking forward to the move to civilian life.  Since J was headed out to 29 Palms (the middle of nowhere), we tried to have a lot of family time including a few beach trips before he left.  Unfortunately I ended up coming down with bronchitis that was pretty bad but J was great when he was home about taking G.  My blonde boys spent a lot of time together until J had to leave.  They are so adorable together, especially when J gets G laughing really hard!

The day that J left, G and I flew up to Salt Lake to spend time with my family.  My parents will use any excuse to see their grandson so when they found out J was going to be gone for a few weeks, they bought me a ticket to come home.  I was still struggling with bronchitis that lasted for almost three weeks so it was especially nice to have help with my little man.  My mom saved a lot of toys from my brothers so she pulled out a cool train set that G really liked in addition to some of the baby toys.  For some reason G really thinks my mom is hilarious so every time he sees her he gets a huge grin on his face and he will laugh at pretty much anything she says.  It's pretty adorable to watch :)  We had a great week and G was loving all of the attention he got from everyone!  We were able to see my Grandma P again which was also great! I love how many times we have been able to visit my family this last year.  I really want G to know his grandparents and his aunts and uncles. We had so much fun in Utah!

After a week in Salt Lake, we flew to Sacramento so that we could go to a big family celebration of my Grandpa M for his 80th birthday.  We spent a night with my Aunt C and Uncle J and their family which was a lot of fun and then we drove up north to Paradise, California where my mom is from.  It is a beautiful small town with a ton of tall trees that I always enjoyed visiting while I was growing up.  All eight of my grandpa's kids and the majority of their spouses and children were there to spend time together.  I don't get to see everyone very often especially my cousins so it was really great to catch up with people!  My grandpa has eight children, thirty eight grandchildren, and one great grandchild so he definitely has a lot of people who really love him!  We haven't all been together in years so this was a special occasion.  I am so grateful that G and I were able to make the trip and spend a little more time with my family.

At 9 months G:
-is 19.8 lbs.  This puts him in the 87th percentile for weight.  Last month I was told he was in the 20th percentile at 19 lbs so someone messed up somewhere but he is a pretty big boy so I think the 87th sounds more likely.
-is 29 1/2 inches long which puts him in the 92nd percentile for height.  He is a pretty tall little man!
- wears 6-9 month clothes.  He finally grew out of all of his 3-6 month clothes just before hitting 9 months old.  Since he is a tall chunk I don't really understand baby sizing :)
-sleeps pretty well most nights but during our trip he refused the pack n play and ended up sharing a bed with me pretty much the whole time we were gone.
-has crawled across the room on several occasions but he still really seems to prefer rolling and army crawling to get to what he wants.  He has done this with a lot of skills where at first he only does them rarely and then eventually something clicks and he does them all the time.  He is constantly moving now and always trying to get to something out of his reach.
-can push himself up to a sitting position when he is laying on his stomach.
-loves to eat!  He now eats small pieces of chicken, turkey, cutie oranges, bananas, grapes, strawberries, bread, sweet potatoes, cheese and a few other foods.  While we were at my parents house, he loved throwing some of his food over the side of the high chair to feed their dog.  It was funny to watch :)
-likes to have some time to play by himself every day.  I love that he enjoys playing alone because it let's me get more done :)
-pulls himself up on furniture or people.  He really seems to love pulling himself up but sometimes he forgets to hold on once he is there so he topples over.
-still loves jumping in his jumperoo but will also try to jump on anyone who is holding him when it isn't available.  At my parents house he spent a lot of time bouncing on all of our laps :)
-is able to pick up small things with his thumb and pointer finger.  He can now pick up his little puffs and get them in his mouth.
-has no concept of self preservation.  This kid will throw himself off any piece of furniture that he can get himself on.  He is just lucky that I never let him out of my reach!
-is a very laid back baby who adapts to most situations pretty well.  He did really well with my family and especially at my grandpa's party when there were a ton of people around.  We are so blessed to have such a smiley little cutie in our lives!