"Peanut"

I'll start from the beginning...

On our way home from Cancun on the plane, I was SURE I was getting cramps because of my period coming up.  They were so bad.  But even the next morning it still hadn't shown up.  So when we woke up, I told Austin I was going to take a pregnancy test to just rule that out.  I go in to take it and it was positive!  I ran in and told him and we couldn't believe it!  I wanted to tell him in some cute way, but I told him I was taking it...so that plan didn't work out.  I probably wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret anyway.  This post is titled, "Peanut" because for some reason that's what we've called him from the very beginning.  

How we told the fam

We told our family earlier than we thought we would, but since it was around Thanksgiving we thought that would be a fun time to share the news.  

For Austin's parents, we told them a few days before Thanksgiving that we got an Amazon Prime package delivered to our house with their name on it and we'd bring it by sometime that week.  They thought it was weird but with my amazing packaging skills, it looked legit!  I wrapped up a little pair of baby shoes with a paper that said "Baby Facer coming soon...July 2016" and put them in a tiny box with a bow, then put that box in the Prime box.  We took it over there and I filmed Austin's mom opening it.  They had the funniest guesses of what it would be...we were dying.  The funniest part was she sent Austin's dad downstairs to get ice cream while she was opening it, so he wasn't even there when it was finally opened.  I love her reaction -- she rips her coat off.  So dang funny :)  Since Austin's sister, Sarah, was on a mission in France, we told her on Christmas on Skype and her reaction is hilarious, too.

For my parents/family, I made this cute little onesie to put on my sisters brand new baby that said, "This lil turkey is going to be a big cousin."  I was planning on taking him out of the room, changing him real quick, and bringing him back to give to my mom.  It didn't go that smoothly...haha.  After we'd eaten, I waited for the perfect time to hold Jake so that I could take him out while everyone was just hanging out.  While I was holding him, it smelled like he'd pooped, so I told Lindsay I'd go change him.  She had to put some medication on him though, so she wasn't letting me.  So I went out with her anyway while she changed him, then I stole him and took him into the extra bedroom and started to change him, but he started screaming!  I would start changing him for a second, then calm him down, then change, then calm...until I heard Lindsay say, "Where's Jake?  I can hear him crying."  I felt like a horrible aunt!  After a few mins Lindsay and my other sister Amy came in and were so confused.  "What are you doing??" "Um, just changing him a little bit.  You guys can leave."  They could tell something was up, so when I finally got him changed and came out (with him swaddled in a blanket to cover up the fact that he had different clothes on now) they looked at me suspiciously.  I wanted to give him to my mom, but she wouldn't quit doing the dishes!  I had nieces and nephews begging to take him from me but I had to wait for my mom.  She finally sat down and took him from me but didn't notice the onesie until Lindsay and Amy pointed it out.  I didn't film it, but here's a cute picture my sister took when my dad came over to see.

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Symptoms

The first few weeks were just pure exhaustion and hunger.  I had to be eating pretty much all the time or else I'd feel nauseous, but I wasn't throwing up too much.  The only time I'd throw up is in the morning after I showered, but not every time.  I was eating everything in sight and sleeping every chance I could.

When I hit about 15-16 weeks, I started to feel normal again.  I had been taking Unisom (half in the morning, half at night) to help with nausea and I kept taking it, not wanting to risk being sick. I stopped taking it somewhere around the 18th-ish week and haven't felt sick since.  Since around week 8, I have had heartburn pretty bad.  I went through a lot of different medications before I found my best friend: omeprazole. I have been taking it faithfully for about 4 months and I hate my life on the days I forget to take it. 

Since about week 26, I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring, so I bought a cheap one from Claire's that I've worn since then.  I've received lots of compliments on my gorgeous $13 ring ;)  Around the same time, my feet started to swell at night a little bit.  Starting about week 28, my feet have been suuuuper swollen and I haven't seen my ankles for a very long time.  The past week or so (36-37 weeks) they've been really bad!

Besides my dang feet, I have felt surprisingly normal this entire pregnancy.  I've just recently started having to get up in the night to go to the bathroom, but it's only once a night and I sleep great most nights.  (Maybe it's because I have an awesome support pillow and I get the bed to myself?)  This whole pregnancy thing been really easy for me and I've been super lucky, which I'm so grateful for.  I just hope all they're all like this!

Cravings

The first craving I remember having was vegetables and dip.  I brought a big container of sour cream and made my Hidden Valley Dill dip at work and ate vegetables all day long.  Around the same time I wanted hummus and pita chips, so those were on my desk frequently.  When I was nauseous, it was Goldfish, Ritz, Mac & Cheese and any cracker I could find.  Mostly carby, unhealthy things.  I'm sure people thought I was crazy because I always had food at my desk.  Always.  The Mac & Cheese and Goldfish obsession lasted a reaaaally long time.  I remember being so frustrated with food though, because not a whole lot sounded very good but I was SO hungry most of the time that I just had to force myself to eat.  I got in the habit of doing that so I think that helped with me not getting very sick.

Once I wasn't so sick anymore, my smoothie/Slurpee/popsicle/anything cold and/or frozen kicked in.  I was stopping at Costco multiple times a week after work to get a berry smoothie.  Our freezer always had some sort of frozen treat, and we made a lot of runs to 7-11 for Slurpees.  One of the weirdest cravings has been Diet Coke.  I didn't like it before I was pregnant, but one day I went to get a drink at work and have never been so drawn to Diet Coke...and it tasted SO GOOD.  Since then it's been my drink of choice most of the time, especially with lime.  So bizarre.

Umm, don't mind the sock and nail clippers on the table...haha what the heck?

Right now I'm mostly craving lemonade, and that's about it.  Frozen, regular, any kind that's not the regular Minute Maid fountain kind.  I can't get enough.

Gender reveal

We were SO excited when we found out it was a boy.  We secretly wanted it to be a boy, so it's good it worked out that way :)  I'm excited because in my family, my brother and his wife just had a baby boy a year and a half ago, and my sister just had a baby boy in November.  They'll all be about a year apart, plus Lindsay's baby will be in the same grade as the lil peanut, so that'll be really fun.

For Austin's family, we made a cake and had his mom cut into it.  Her reactions are the best...haha.  Here's a little video of it:

For my family, we got a bunch of blue silly string and wrapped it in white paper.  We gave one to all the kids and had them spray it to find out.  We obviously already knew before both families.  We couldn't wait for them!

Here's a cute video we got from our 20 week ultrasound of him giving us a thumbs up!

Here's some progress pics along the way.  I wasn't very good at doing it...it's too hard to remember!  Also, Austin has been in Illinois/Indiana/Alabama this summer, so my lack of pictures is mostly due to my Instagram husband not being here.  Also, from the end of April to the end of May I was crazy busy with Quilt Market and I don't think I took one progress shot that whole time.  But here's a few.

6 weeks/3 days

10 weeks/3 days

16 weeks/1 day

20 weeks/3 days

28 weeks/3 days

Somewhere around 32 weeks...haha

33 weeks/5 days

36 weeks

Well, if you read this whole post, congratulations!  I had to include everything so I wouldn't forget. :)  I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow (so crazy!) and since both my mom and Austin's mom will be gone over my due date, my Dr will be inducing me on July 7th. (which happens to be my grandpa's birthday!) That's two weeks from tomorrow, people!  Austin will be coming home on July 3rd (yay!!!) and we can't wait for our little peanut to get here.

Vivaaaaa Las Vegas

This year in March, we wanted to take a little vacation before Austin had to leave for the summer and before our little babe arrives.  We decided to head to Vegas!  We booked it (nonrefundable) on the cheapest weekend we could find, which turned out to be Easter.  Whoops!  That's probably why it was so cheap, but we went to the City of Sin on Easter weekend anyway...haha.  We stayed in the older part of Vegas by Fremont Street at the Downtown Grand.  This was our second time staying there and we've LOVED it both times.  It's way less expensive than the strip but still close enough, and they have the coolest roof top pool to hang out at.

This is a view of Fremont Street at night.  The best place for people watching.

People always ask why we would go to Vegas when we're LDS and we don't smoke, drink, or gamble.  Well, we go for the food.  And a little bit of shopping.  Another reason we stay by Fremont Street is because is closer to the North outlets we like to shop at.  So for everyone wondering, that's why we go.  :)

We spent most of the our first day at the outlets.  Well, mostly the Nike store for Austin and a few random stores for me.  I was 25 weeks pregnant at the time so I didn't know what to shop for and didn't end up getting too much.

After shopping we had a little excitement...right as we were pulling out of the outlets, our tire felt super weird.  We pulled into a gas station and sure enough we had a huge nail in it.  After going to 3 different auto shops, (it was closing time for all of them) we were told to go to this place that would apparently get us in and out pretty quick.  Even though it was a pretty sketchy place, they were quick and cheap so it was great!

That night we ate at Park on Fremont, a restaurant we accidentally found the last time we were in Vegas.  We thought we were going into the restaurant next door, but we ended up at this one and it was so cute we decided to stay.  It's the cutest restaurant (if you eat outside in the back) and doesn't have the biggest menu, but the food is good and the atmosphere is the best part.

There's a teeter totter in the back of the restaurant...how cute is that?

Across the street is a new burger place called, "Flippin Good Burgers and Shakes."  So we had to go get a shake after dinner, and it was delicious!

The next day we made the trek to the strip to walk around and find some good eats.  We hit the Coke store and M&M store and then went to the New York New York for lunch.  I don't even think this place has a name...New York Pizzeria?  It's across the hall from the upper level of Hershey World.  It's dang good!  We just get pepperoni and some garlic knots.  Mmmm...

The rest of the day we just wandered around to different casinos...we love walking around in Caesar's Palace shops and the Venetian ones, too.  I forgot to take a picture, but someone told us to get a cronut at Cafe Presse in the Venetian.  It was SO GOOD.  We heard they were half price after a certain time so we went later and bought one to share.  The girl came out with two of them and said, "Happy Easter weekend!"  So we each had one...yum.  

For dinner, my brother in law suggested the Grand Lux Cafe in the Venetian and to get the beignets.  We ended up getting pizza again, but holy cow, best pizza ever!

When we went to order the beignets, they told us they're only offered at their other restaurant...lame.  But we walked over there and ordered them to go.  They were super delicious and way too many for 2 people...but I think we ate almost all of them anyway.

Our last day we hung out at the pool most of the day because Austin had a lot of studying to do for a big nasty test.  (Any accounting majors that can relate?)

We did take a break to go try Tacos el Gordo, which was recommended by tons of people.  It's a freaking madhouse inside (we even went to the one on the North end of Vegas where it's not as busy) but it was worth the crazy lines.  There's a line for beef, one for pork, and one for brains and weird stuff.  So Austin and I split up and ended up with a lot of yummy stuff.  When we sat down Austin told me about this "amazing orange drink" that a ton of people mentioned in reviews, so he had me try it and it was Orange Bang!  You can get it at RB's gas stations and it is delicious, but super funny that people were freaking out about it online.

We also had to give in to the hype about Shake Shack...so we had that for dinner on our last day.  It was really good!  Nothing out of this world, but the fries were cute.

On our way out, we had to stop at Hash House a Go Go, which everyone talks about but we've never tried.  We really wanted to try the chicken & waffles but were in the mood for some normal breakfast food, and we heard their portions are huge, so we ordered some eggs, bacon, and flapjacks.  We were disappointed that it wasn't that much food...unless we're just pigs.  We could've easily each ordered this entree, but it was really good anyway!  We may or may not have stopped at McDonald's after...  

Next time it'll be chicken & waffles.

Sorry for this being a food post, but that's seriously all we do when we're there.  It was a great weekend and I'm sure we'll be back soon!

Cancun

Since I'll be having this baby in just over 2 weeks (!!!) I figured I should do some updating on this bloggity blog.

Remember how last summer Austin worked in South Carolina for 4 months?  Well when we eventually came back, we had the chance to go to Cancun with his company.  (This was in November...so I'm obviously behind on this thing.)  We stayed at the Riu Palace Los Americas.  It was amazing!  Since Austin's brother, Dalton, was engaged but not quite married, he had to tag along by himself with us, the old married couple.  We got there early in the morning and even though we were exhausted from the red-eye flight, we found ourselves a pina colada and started off our trip right!

Since we stayed at an all inclusive resort, most of our time was spent either on the beach or in the buffet room eating.  I don't remember where we ate the first night, but we didn't go to the normal buffet and we missed out on some amazing lobster that EVERYONE was talking about.  We went back every night and they never had it again.  Bummer.  The food was great though.  The whole time we were there, we'd compare it to a cruise to see the pros and cons of each.  One thing we liked about a resort is the fact that (at least this one) had a lot of local food, rather than just American type stuff.  I can't even tell you how much guacamole I had over the course of 3 days.  Soooo good.  Plus there was always lots of dessert.

As for our beach time, it consisted of a lot of laying out and hanging out on the beach.  They had a sand volleyball court where we spent lots of time.  With a huge group of salesguys and their wives, there was almost always 6 on 6 playing pretty competitively.  We'd play for a bit then chill and have a pina colada or some other type of frozen deliciousness.  I think we tried every virgin drink they had and the bartenders got sick of us I'm sure, because they finally asked, "What is this group of people here?  I've never made so many virgin drinks before!"  We asked him if they were harder to make than alcoholic ones and he said, "Yes, a lot harder!  You guys actually want them to taste good."  But that didn't stop us from still ordering one every chance we could.  Our favorite was a "coco cobana" which was a mix of pina colada and strawberry daiquiri.  

This drink looks good, but it was super nasty.

They have tons of excursions you can go on, kind of like a cruise.  We went across the street to a little mall and after hours of bartering with a couple excursion people, our group (of 25) decided to go to Tulum to see the ancient ruins as well as some snorkeling in the cenotes.  It was quite the experience to witness the bartering going on to get the deal we got.  We were a huge group of a few technicians, but mostly salesguys.  Because of that, we were at the mall for literally 1-2 hours with one salesguy running back and forth between two different excursion companies trying to get the best deal.  It was hilariously entertaining.  Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of snorkeling, let alone confined spaces...so I took a floatie tube with me to the cenotes and they let me just float around with my feet safely in the air away from creatures. :)  We also took a little tour around a reptile zoo sort of thing.  All I remember is lots of snakes.  Big ones.  We had some authentic Mexican food at lunch.  It was a great excursion!  Don't mind how I look in a hard hat...looks like a trucker with a mullet.

This is Austin & Dalton with their manager, Mark.

The whole trip we'd see people drinking out of coconuts and they looked so tropical and delicious!  We finally got one and I ended up going back to get a Coke because it was disgusting.  Austin and Dalton enjoyed them though.

The rest of the time we just hung out and did nothing, which was the best thing ever.  It was only 3 days, but it was one of the most relaxing trips I've been on.  A funny thing that happened.....

One night we had prime rib (I love prime rib and have never had a problem with meat that is too raw.) and as Austin and Dalton are chowing down, I am completely disgusted by it and couldn't eat even one bite!  If that wasn't weird enough, the next night they had a guy there who was making sushi custom to what you wanted in it.  I got two rolls for all 3 of us and I ended up eating one whole roll and most of the other one, which was super weird because I don't even really like sushi...only the fried kind.  :)  We found out the day we came back that I was pregnant, which totally explained the prime rib/sushi mix up.

It was a short but fantastic trip!  On our red-eye flight home (yikes), I woke up to find Austin's gum squished between my leg and my iPad.  How it got there?  I have no idea, but it was pretty funny.  

These two were jealous of my amazing leg room thanks to my very short legs.

We can't wait to go back to Cancun someday!

Also, the day we came home we were able to meet our new nephew, Jacob Bruiser!  He was born the day before we left.  He looks totally different now obviously, but here are a couple pics of him.  He's such a cutie.