Its a Boy!!

Here are the ultrasound pics of Connor at 21 weeks, 4 days. Look at that sweet little face! You can even see his teeth in his gums. 

When the technician was getting the shot of his feet he actually had his hand down playing with his toes at first. Adorable! 

Bottom of his little feet! 

Little hand I will get to hold soon :)

Aaannnndd it was definitely a boy!! Haha. She said girls have hamburgers and boys have turtles. Lol. You can see his little 'turtle' facing right. 

Later on she got a real good shot of his boy parts. No doubt about it! He's a boy. (I hope none of you are offended at me showing you my baby's junk. Haha)

We learned that baby is already head down and has his bum all the way up by my ribs. No wonder I already can't breathe! He weights approximately 1.1 pounds and the technician said that everything looked good!

Now I can really get started on the nursery and making plans for this little boy! So fun! 

Half Way There

My Mom took these of me at exactly 20 weeks. I thought it was super cute that on the morning of, I felt the baby have the hiccups for the first time. 

As you can see my t-shirts are starting to look a bit short in front. 

Also as of this week, when I sit down my normal pants are feeling too tight so don't be surprised if you see me with them unbuttoned from time to time. 

At this point baby is about 6.5 inches long and 10.2 oz. I have gained back most of the weight I lost in my first trimester and now weigh about 2 pounds more then I usually do. It seems so strange because my belly and love handles are the biggest they have ever been!

Baby Updates

This afternoon mom helped me with a little photo shoot! Look at my little baby bump! I am at 19 weeks and 3 days.

I have been feeling baby everyday now since I was at 16 weeks! At 19 weeks, baby's kicks really started to get strong. I can usually tell right were he is and sometimes he even punches one side and kicks the other at the same time. It was pretty funny the other day when I could feel it on either side of my belly button. One side would get kicked and then a second later he would punch the other side.

The most exciting thing is that I can now feel him with my hand on the outside! Last Wednesday we ate hamburgers and baby must have really liked them because he kicked me the whole night after that. I actually don't really like hamburgers but Logan loves them and now so does my baby and I am already feeling outnumbered.

Anyway, Mom, Shelby and me went to see a movie that night while baby was kicking so much. I usually don't put my hand down my pants in public but I didn't think it would be too bad in a dark theater. Just before the end, I actually felt him kick my hand. I was surprised that I could feel it over three fingers. My child is so strong (yet another trait he gets from Logan and not me)!

I have felt him with my hand several times now :)

Loving my baby bump!

I Love To See The Temple

On Memorial Day weekend, Logan got to take a break and drive up to Albuquerque to see me! 

I am so grateful for having the opportunity to go to the temple with my husband. When we came out to visit, I knew we had to make it a priority because we haven't been since moving to Japan and won't get another opportunity until after baby comes. It was hard to go when I didn't feel great but I'm so glad we did!

It filled my soul with happiness and I know that it is the house of the Lord and we are so blessed to learn of our salvation as well as remember all the blessings of being sealed together for time and all eternity. 

It was also fun to get to stand in the same place where Logan proposed to me 4 and a half years ago! I love my little growing family!!

Family Baby Shower

I was so lucky to get to have a baby shower with all my family when I was in the states! My mom and sisters are amazing and just did a fantastic job! I felt so loved! Here are some pictures from the event.

It was so special to have all my sisters and great grandma there! 

Starting to Show!

It is just a little bit, but I'm finally showing a little baby bump! 16 weeks

Maternity Clothes

So I'm back in the states again for a several weeks! I was really hoping that by now my morning sickness would have gone away but no such luck. I still feel nauseous several times a day but mostly at night. At least if I get enough sleep and don't try to do too much during the day I am still functional.

The flight over was not as bad as it could have been. I just took a commercial flight instead of trying to Space-A but the last leg was delayed several hours so the whole trip took 29 hours. At least I was super lucky that my longest flight (12 hours) wasn't full so I stole a middle row of seats and got to sleep across all three. The only time I got sick was each time we went into land. That took some serious breathing exercises.

One of my main goals when I came back was to get some maternity clothes.

My options in Okinawa are whatever is available at the BX or Japanese clothes. The BX just looks like they took the Jr section and made more room in the front and all the Japanese wear are oversized smocks and dresses. Not really my style. 

So far I have found most of what I needed at Kohl's and Ross. Today I just needed to find a good pair of jeans so mom and me checked out motherhood maternity. 

My favorite part is that they have fake bumps to try on!! Haha! So I had fun trying on my new jeans with it!

So funny right!! Mom said that's probably what I'll look like at 8 months.  By the way, my top is not maternity so that's why it looks a little funny. 

Ps. I have always heard that maternity pants (that have the full stomach panel) are super comfy. I was skeptical until I tried them!! Why doesn't everyone wear pants like these ALL THE TIME?! 

Surprising Fun Day

This Saturday, the only thing that Logan and me had planned was to go to the store to get toilet paper and check out a furniture store to see if they had any desks we liked. So we slept in, ate lunch and took care of our few errands. When we were done, Logan decided to try and "get lost". He didn't know where he was going but I knew where we were the whole time. haha.

After driving around for a little bit, Logan then decided he wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. You know, we see the East China Sea every day because we live on the west side of the island but it was overdue to see the east side of the island and the Pacific. So we headed that way.

As we were driving towards the coast we saw some castle ruins and decided to check them out! Turns out they were the Katsuren Castle ruins (a world heritage site) and they were free! Even though it was super windy, it had a beautiful view and was fun to hike around.

Look how thick the walls are! 

Stairs we had to go up. It was super scary because they slant down! These were not even the worst stairs we took. 

Up at the very top! There were three different levels we climbed up.

After checking the whole castle out, we headed back down the hill. Right next to the place we parked had a little ice cream shop so we ordered mango and sugar cane and then the little Japanese girl said they only had chocolate, vanilla and beni-imo. No problem, we are flexible. Chocolate and beni-imo it is then! (Beni-imo is the Japanese sweet potato flavor. Very unique and yummy!)

So what started to be a boring day turned out to be a fun adventure! I felt good all day and it was fun to get out and see some of our beautiful island!

Today just keeps getting better and better!

For our anniversary, Logan got to come home early and when he did, he brought me the most beautiful flowers! Bonus points for them being my favorite - these were the main flowers in my bouquet! Four ranunculus flowers for the four years that we have been married.

I was worried all day that I would be too sick to go out to eat. Baby is just barely letting me keep food down. Our plan was to eat at this fancy restaurant called Four Seasons (tepanyaki steak and lobster!) but if I wasn't quite feeling up to it we would go to a place similar but less pricy, and if that didn't sound good we were going to get pizza and if that was still too much our last option was to just stay home. Fortunately, I was feeling pretty good but didn't want to waste any money if I all the sudden started feeling crappy again (that happens a lot) so we choose the second option and went to a tepanyaki place called Capital.

It was really good and always fun to get to watch them cook your food right in front of you on the grill why didn't I take a picture of that! Oh, well, you will have to imagine our pottage soup, Japanese salads, and then made on the grill: toasted bread, grilled steak, potatoes and sautéed onions, bean sprouts and bock choy. It was all really really good! I was shocked that I even ate almost my normal amount! I guess its easier to eat more food when it is so yummy!

Even though we were full we still couldn't go home without dessert!! So we stopped at a local Japanese ice cream shop and got double scoops! Log got chocolate cookie swirl but my coconut and strawberry shortcake was way better! Just when life couldn't get any sweeter Logan surprised me again when we got home with TA-DA a brand new iMAC!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY!!! I am the luckiest girl ever! Yes it is technically "our" anniversary gift but it is really MINE!!! Logan and me have talked before about how when we got pregnant we would not get to travel for a while so we had kinda decided that we would use the travel fund to upgrade the computer or TV. Makes since if we are spending more time at home feeling morning sick or with a little newborn baby!

I never thought that I would be a apple gal but I have slowly turned. I've owned multiple iPods, we got the iPad two summers ago and then I got the new iPhone when we got out here so I guess it just makes since. Plus I really love how sleek and simple it looks. It connects to the internet wirelessly and it means that I can put it anywhere (the living room) without having to drag wires all over the house (we wanted to put the "office" downstairs and make that room upstairs the babies nursery). So happy :)

Happy 4 Year Anniversary!

I don't know how today could get any better! It is our 4 year anniversary, Earth Day and we are so excited to announce that we have a little baby on the way!! Baby Dixon is due to arrive on October 30th. I wasn't quite ready to make a formal Facebook announcement so consider it a bonus that anyone who cared enough to read my blog gets to hear about baby first! 

It truly is a blessing to finally be at this point. I have known so many great couples that have struggled when trying to grow their families; I never thought we would be one of those couples too. After several years, that have had some trying and sad times, I am so grateful that we have been able to conceive naturally and continue to carry this baby. After miscarrying our first baby, it was really hard for me to accept that this was actually going to happen but each day I am filled with more and more hope. 

I thought because of the hard time we have had to get pregnant, I have always told myself it won't matter if I get sick, I won't care and I'll just be so happy.  Biggest lie I have ever told myself! haha! Being pregnant is really hard! All day sickness, lots of hospital visits, an ER visit, multiple rounds of antibiotics, hives and lots of other little things have made life pretty difficult. All that is why I haven't really done much and haven't been see outside my house for the last 6 weeks. Now that I'm going into my second trimester, I have started to feel better and that has been a huge blessing.

We are definitely excited for this new adventure! Ready or not!