24 Week Pregnancy Update

I'm 24 1/2 weeks! I can't believe I'm over halfway done with this pregnancy and that in just over 3 months our little girl will be with us! Our biggest update is that she is moving. A ton! I first felt her move at 20 weeks, which surprised me because my doctor said I may feel her later than most due to the anterior location of the placenta. It felt like a small twitch at first and would happen maybe once a day, but now a few weeks later I feel her moving and kicking many times throughout the day. I love feeling her move! It is also a huge comfort to me because it means she's still doing okay! David first felt her move at 21 weeks while we were at church. He's since felt her many times and it is so fun to see how excited he gets, he will be such a great dad! 

The other big change has been to my waste line! I finally look really pregnant and my belly is definitely getting big. It's fun to wear actual maternity clothes too that accentuate my stomach. 

I haven't had too many cravings or aversions to foods. I still like all the normal things, but eat them more being pregnant because I allow myself more splurges than I normally do. Like Mac and cheese. It's always been my favorite food but I usually don't eat it a ton since it's so unhealthy, but being pregnant I have been eating it all the time while the calories don't count ;) I have been buying lots of chocolate milk too, which I love. Basically, I eat like a kid! Ooh I almost forgot, I have been wanting a good turkey sandwich! I'll definitely be getting that after baby comes. 

I've gained about 10 pounds so far, and I'm sure I'll pack on many more in the coming months! They will have to do another ultrasound around 30 weeks to see if my placenta has moved. I have placenta previa and my doctor said there is a 50/50 chance I'll need a c-section. After the ultrasound they'll have a better idea of whether I will need one for sure. I have a great doctor so I am in good hands, and am fine with however our little girl comes, as long as she's okay! 

Last update: we bought a crib! It was one I loved and on sale so it was a great deal! We are in the process of planning out the nursery. We got paint samples the other day and are planning on painting it a light grey. The colors will be light and bright: light pink, light grey and white. Hopefully it turns out cute. I'll put up pictures once we have something to document, but for now here are some pictures of my bump:

20 weeks, 6 days (right before Mexico):

22 weeks: 

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

We just got back from Mexico two weeks ago and had so much fun- it's about time I update this little space of ours! The dental school had a spring break this year, and we were all so excited after not getting one last year. David and I knew we wanted to plan something [in the sun] as it may be one of our last big vacations until baby girl makes her debut, we just didn't know what exactly that would be. One of the other dental couples and our good friends, Kyle and Paulina, invited us to go down to Mexico with them to stay at their uncle's house in Playa del Carmen. It was so nice of them to invite us and of course we said YES! There were 5 couples total that went down and it was such a blast!

The first day, we flew into Cancun and had to rent cars to drive down to Playa, which ended up being a long travel day. We were all starving that night and decided to head over to 5th Avenue, which is the main street of the town that has all the fun shops, restaurants and nightlife. It makes for lots of crowds (mostly tourists) and great people watching. We ended up going here almost every night to try out new places for dinner, and it was super fun.

The next day was pretty relaxing. I slept in and did a workout video (I hardly did anything) with Jessica, then we all packed up our towels and food and laid at the beach all day. It was beautiful and so nice to lay in the sun. Although, I will tell you this...if you are pregnant, it is worth it to get or rent a chair, back rest or something. Laying in the sand is so uncomfortable! Anyways, after the beach we cleaned up and headed to 5th Avenue for dinner again.

The whole group:

The next day we went to Xel-Ha (pronounced Shell-ha), which was beautiful! We snorkeled, walked around, ate lots of food, and had a great day. Overall, kind of an overrated place, and I wouldn't go again, but we had a great time.

David on the ropes course:

All the girls:

The next day, we tried out a new beach in the morning:

Yes, that is me under David's shirt, he thought he was SO funny ;)

In the afternoon, we headed to the pool at the place we were staying. We only got a picture of all the girls, since the boys were on the other side of the pool filming their synchronized dance routine...it was pretty hilarious.

The day after that, we went down to Tulum, which is the site of an ancient Mayan civilization. It was super neat! I would have loved to do a tour a learn more, but they were really expensive...so we just wandered around. It ended up being a good thing though, because after 30 minutes, we were all dying of heat! I seriously felt like I was melting and told David he may need to carry me out of there...

Selfie with the cliffs of Tulum in the background:

Luckily I survived, and we made it to Akumal where there is a beautiful beach! There were tons of sea turtles and sting rays, and although the snorkeling wasn't nearly as good as Roatan, it was still so fun to explore and swim in the warm water.

 I love this selfie the guys took while snorkeling:

And of course we wanted to get a pic of everyone in their gear:

We ended up going back to Akumal for our last day as well because it was our favorite beach, and then out to dinner at this fun restaurant on the beach called Fusion. We actually ate at that restaurant twice in the week because the atmosphere was so awesome (plus the nachos were great too)!

Here we are in front of the place we stayed for the week before heading out to dinner:

 We had such a blast with this crew and laughed non stop! We are so grateful to Kyle and Paulina for inviting us, we had the best time!

It's A...

We are just thrilled that our baby is a girl! We didn't care either way, but now that I know it's a little girl, everything is starting to feel more real and we can't wait to meet her in July!

To be honest, I don't know what this is a picture of. She was stubborn and it was hard for the ultrasound technician to get great images, so this was one of the best we got. In all reality, I can hardly figure out what any ultrasound picture is of, but we definitely know it's a girl!

The following bits of rambling are just some boring pregnancy updates since this is my only way of journaling/remembering, so feel free to stop reading now.

Pregnancy has been pretty good so far. My first trimester wasn't too bad. I felt nauseous if I got hungry at all, so that was obnoxious and I had to keep snacks in my purse all the time. I never got grossed out by specific foods, but cereal ALWAYS sounded good so I ate a lot of that. I did throw up once, but it was because I ate McDonald's on a road trip...not because of baby. Is it sad that their fries still sound good?

Since being in my second trimester, I have felt better and don't get nauseous anymore when hungry. Wahoo! I feel almost back to normal, although I have been really tired. I have even worked out a few times, but I get tired quicker and have to take it easier than normal.

We had an appointment at 14 weeks where we heard the heartbeat and that was so neat! It was beating about 160 BPM, which was amazing and so fast. Her heart sounded like a little factory. 

Today, my birthday (yes, I scheduled that), we had our ultrasound (18 weeks) to find out the baby's gender and found out it was a girl! We were so happy and it was so neat seeing everything. She had the hiccups while we were doing it which was so funny. Her diaphragm would contract and it was really darling.

As of right now I have placenta previa, meaning the placenta is too low. They said usually it moves within the next few months, so hopefully that is the case! Baby girl is healthy and big! She is measuring about a week earlier, meaning she could be here sooner, but they will wait a couple more months to see if they need to change the due date. 

I really started showing in the last two weeks. That is exciting because I no longer just look heavy, but actually pregnant! 

About 14 weeks. My belly really came out at night after all the eating throughout the day, ha!

 Here I am going go church in my new maternity dress (thanks mom!). I am about 16 weeks:

17 weeks at the gym. I really felt like I 'popped' overnight!

And here is David with our cute nephew, Nixon:

 He is so so good with kids and will be such a good dad. I can't wait to see him with our daughter!

Pre-Christmas Festivities

This Christmas season was great, but also flew by! I can't believe tomorrow is 2015! Anyways, the season seemed to fly by and I'm glad we put our Christmas tree up early because we were gone for a week at Thanksgiving and a week at Christmas, so this way we got to enjoy it before it's all put away (maybe tonight?). A few festive things from the last month:

We got together with my old Freshman roommates and their husbands to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. First we started with the Pie (great & fattening pizza), then went to TS where it was a zoo so only stayed around 20 minutes, then hung out at my friend Meagan's cutest new house. It was so fun to catch up with them all!

Me, Michaela, Keelia, & Meagan (Yvonne and Spencer couldn't find parking so met us after at Meagan's):

Love this guy:

Love cute Keelia! We had so much fun sharing a room:

All of us after at Meagan's:

Another fun festivity we did was go to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert with David's sister, Jessie and her husband, Scott. We first went to Cheesecake Factory then enjoyed the show. Each year they have different guests/singers/actors/performers and this year they had the Muppets. They were actually pretty funny, but it wasn't my favorite show ever.

Here we are with Jess & Scott:

And my main squeeze:

Christmas-February Recap

I realize that it is February...whoops. Anyways, we had a great Christmas and we've been up to a lot so I thought I would do a quick recap to catch up on everything. 

We had a fabulous Christmas spent in Colorado with my family! We were there for over a week and it was so relaxing. I was able to ski almost every day, although I was extra slow and out of shape! Regardless, it was amazing to be in the mountains and enjoy a white Christmas. 

I seriously have no photos from Christmas, so I stole these two from my sister, Carrie. My dad took a bunch on his nice camera, but I haven't seen them since. Here we are all watching Frozen. My nephew, Ty, loved it! So we watched it about a dozen times. Lounging in PJs means it was a good break!

And this is of my neice, isn't she the CUTEST?! She was bundled up on the slopes watching her brother ski. I couldn't resist because I thought it was so darling!

I love having kids around at Christmas! It is so magical.

Other updates:

I started a new job back in early December!! I am working at the U of U still, but in their study abroad department and I love it! It keeps me much busier and although I have been pretty exhausted being pregnant at all, I am enjoying it and glad everything worked out.

David started seeing his first patients in the new dental clinic at the U of U. He loves actually practicing more dentistry and observing/assisting with some oral surgeries. It makes me so happy he is loving his career choice!

We're Having A Baby!

Yep, it's true and we're super excited! We announced it earlier at Thanksgiving to our immediate family members with a fake Christmas card, where instead of our regular update on the back it had this cute poem (don't mind the logo over 2015):

Both of our families were super excited, but they all knew we were trying so I don't think anyone was truly surprised. Still such a fun way to announce it to them!

We finally went to the doctor when we were 10 weeks along and saw our baby's heartbeat. It looked strong and healthy, and baby was moving around a ton! It made us both think it was a little guy (David is the busy one in this household), but we'll see. We did not get a picture because the images weren't that great during the ultrasound, but we'll hopefully get one at our next appointment.

Then when we were in Colorado for Christmas, my dad took this great picture and we put it up on Facebook to announce to other family and friends. He did a great job and we love how it turned out:

Can't wait to ski with our little one in years to come!

Thanksgiving 2014 Recap

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I am always so excited to see family, eat lots of yummy food, and get everything ready for Christmas! This year we had the best of both worlds; we spent the first few days with David's family and then the last few with my family. Splitting the holiday was so fun, and I am so grateful for our wonderful families!

David's family came out and we all stayed at a condo up in Park City. We had the best time hanging out and playing tons of games. We also tried to take some group pics (just with an iPhone) but they turned out okay! 

Love this guy.

I definitely lucked out with my in-laws. I seriously have so much fun with these ladies:

All the boys. Love that little baby Nix!

And the whole group. Jessie put her phone on top of Daniel's car and this is what we got on the first try...not too shabby!

The cute condo we stayed at:

We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with the Drakes, but unfortunately didn't get any pictures. It was delicious though! That evening we drove out to Colorado and got in super late. We skied Friday and Saturday and had a great time. Oh, it felt so good to be back on the slopes. My legs were burning though and definitely need to get back into skiing shape!

Here we are at the bus stop after the first day of skiing:

Besides skiing, we went Black Friday shopping and also out to eat our last night at our favorite Italian place. And here's another picture of the cutest kids you ever did see!

It was so fun to watch Ty try and ski. We can't wait to be back in about 3 weeks for Christmas! Thank you to both of our families for everything and being so much fun :)