Thursday, November 7, 2013

A HUGE huge Recap of the last 2 months

I'm so, so, oh so behind on blogging.

Yes, we are alive!  And well, and busy, and crazy.

Here is a huge recap of the past 2 months.  

Sept 20th - DATE NIGHT



Being that this was now a while ago, I can only tell you what I remember - ha!  I remember that I was 14 weeks pregnant, needing a break from the kids, and STRONGLY hinted to Will that we needed a date night.

He set up the babysitter, the restaurant, and everything. He took me to one of our favorite little hidden Italian restaurants in downtown Seattle called "That's Amore!"



Afterwards, we drove over to West Seattle to catch a quick view of the city lights and then got home in time to relieve the babysitter. 


We also had another great date night in October where we went and saw "Gravity" (a movie with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock), and Will was great and set that all up as well. Love him.

Sept. 21, 2013 - Preston's First Piano Lesson


I finally decided to start Preston on piano, and so after church on this particular day we had our first lesson together.

Preston learned about hand position, all the finger numbering, the difference between white and black keys, piano strings, pedals, hammers, etc. And also learned his first song which involved playing the set of 2 black keys (any bunch, he picked) and practicing his 1 & 2 fingers.



I will tell you that while the first lesson went great, we have since to have a 2nd lesson. 

Working on that...

Sept 20th, 2013 - "Get Elizabeth Into Labor" Family Dinner

Will's sister was a wee-bit over due and their parents were in town, so we all went to the Olive Garden and prayed Elizabeth would have a baby soon.  Although she seemed to be quite chipper and bouncing around like she didn't have a huge ball in her belly - haha.  She had the baby the next night.




We have lost this cute sweatshirt of Preston's, and this photo is the last time I've seen him wear it. I wonder if the Olive Garden inherited it.






Sept 28th, 2013 - Watershed Park

I usually try to get to the gym with the boys, but on this day I decided to take them to the Watershed Park near our house.  It was super cold, but they were brave and we biked/walked about 2 miles.




We used the bathrooms to warm up for a good 10 min or so....




Will was actually at the top of Rattlesnake Ridge -hiking with the missionaries. You can't see him though :)







Sept 30th, 2013 - Jenni releases her 2nd official music video

Well, I could tell you the long story about this music video, or I could tell you the short version.

Short - It's done.  Finally.


Longer version - This video took like a year to get done.  Not my fault.  It went through a lot of different ideas with different people, and in the end, I just wanted it to be performance based and beautiful.

Although, my cinematographer, not the most prompt person on the earth, had the footage for 3 months and still hadn't edited it.  In an effort to get him to speed up the process I convinced him to get it finished in order to submit to the Grammys in the Music Video category.  This gave him 5 weeks before the deadline.  After all my emails of, uh, "encouragement" for him to get working on it, I finally ended up having to obtain the files from him and overnight them to my other film friends in Los Angeles and they had it cut, edited and uploaded in 5 days.


And on the very last possible day to release it in order to make the Grammy submission deadline (Sept 30th), here is the final result.



I don't expect to get any sort of Grammy nomination for this, I just wanted the video done. :)

Okay Random Pics Section:

Preston on school picture day with his cute new hair cut and spiffy collared preppy shirt eating his mac 'n cheese.


One of the last sunny Fall bike rides at the lake


We finally went to our city public library for the first time and got library cards and checked out some books.  Oh, and Preston fell and completely bruised his cheek on the edge of a metal table. It was pretty gross.


Boys snuggling in our bed watching a movie...


"Crazy Hair Day" at school.  I tried to get him to do some really outrageous stuff, but he wanted a "flat" hair-do. We compromised with a spike because I told him it made him look like a dinosaur. Roar.


And speaking of hair, I finally got 4 INCHES off of mine cut off, which really lightened up the load a lot. It was getting to that point where it would get caught under my armpits. Ha.


Random photo of my wedding ring while shopping in a computer store with flourescent lights that made me want to capture the sparkles.


New (hand-me-down) PJs from Aunt Elizabeth. Thank youuuuuuuuuuuu!!




Oct 6th - The Day We Thought Will Was Lost in the Mountains 

So, prior to this particular weekend, Will and I had some discussions on stress in our lives, and how it seemed like we were so busy with work, kids, church callings, house projects, music projects and we never seemed to just have time to do certain things that we really wanted to do.

I know that one thing that helps Will de-stress is getting out into the mountains for a run.  And just like how he lets me have girls nights every now and then, it is equally rewarding for me to let him go off into nature for a good amount of time as well because he always comes back super happy.

Will and some of his outdoorsy guy friends had made plans to go and hike The Enchantments strategically on a weekend during the Government Shutdown because it meant little to no forest rangers on duty, and no need for a permit.  This particular area was one where hikers need to be on a waiting list for months in order to get a permit to get in there.


Will left Friday after work so that he could get up there in time to camp overnight and get some sunset/sunrise photos with his nice DSLR camera.  And then the plan was the next day he would meet up with his friends, hike, they would go home at the end of the day, and then he would camp one more night to get some more photos and then come home early Sunday morning.










This was all fine and dandy, because I'm glad he was getting some time in the outdoors to de-stress.

The PROBLEM, however, was Sunday morning.

Saturday evening, I went to bed with a pretty bad stomach ache.  Around 2 a.m. Sunday morning I awoke with that "I'm going to throw up" feeling. And so I did.  Pretty bad.  Felt awful.  

What was worse was Taylor woke up and had to be in bed with me because he was crying. And then once I finally got him back into his bed, later Preston was up and in bed with me.  I got a total of 2 hours of sleep that entire night, and still woke up Sunday morning feeling GROSS as heck and wanting to throw up some more.

There really are not many harder things than having to be pregnant while throwing up and taking care of your kids at the same time by yourself. So I texted Will asking if he could come home early, but I knew it was a long shot asking him since he was out of cell range. He was supposed to be home Sunday morning anyway, but I was just hoping he could come home a couple of hours earlier than he planned.

After no response, I called my parents and asked them if they would be willing to come down that day and help with the boys. It was General Conference Sunday so I knew my Dad didn't have any stake responsibilities.





The boys had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa as always, and then they eventually left early in the afternoon. I was feeling better.  

But it was past noon, and Will still wasn't home.  I wasn't really worried at this point because
a) it was gorgeous weather and he was probably enjoying it
b) he has been past-due on many occassions before

I kept trying his cell phone but it was going straight to voice mail which told me he was still out of cell range - up in the mountains somewhere.  I told myself I would give him until 3pm and if he still was out of cell range I might start worrying.  The only reason is because he had mentioned some things he wanted to get done that day and it would be weird if he wasn't coming home earlier enough to get them done.  That, and he told me he would be home that MORNING.

3pm came, and still no Will.

I waited until 4:30pm and then got on Facebook to look at his friends list to find out who went hiking with him the day before.  I emailed a few guys I was familiar with, but they said they were not on the hiking trip (though now they were jealous they weren't invited haha).  One of them was very helpful though (a running partner of Will's) and said he would call a few other guys to find out if they were with Will.


Doug (the friend) messaged me back to say that Marshall, another friend we both mutually knew, had gone hiking with Will on Saturday and so he was going to call me.

A few minutes later Marshall called me, and told me yes they were with Will the day before. I asked him if Will had mentioned his plans, and Marshall said he was planning to camp that night and hike out early the next morning after sunrise.

Grr.  So it was confirmed. He had even told the guys he was planning to hike out that morning early.

Doug told me if I still hadn't hear from Will by 6pm, they would get a search party together and head up to the trailhead (2 hours away) and look for Will.  Having Marshall with them would help because he would know where they were in the moutains and where he last saw Will.

Preston was kind enough to draw a photo of Will in the mountains for the forest rangers so they could post them on signs to look for Papa.  (The 2 blocks on his feet are Preston's rendition of Will's big Hoka running shoes that have like 3 inch soles on them).



 6:00 was approaching, it was getting dark, Will's phone was still going straight to voicemail, and nobody knew where he was.

I was getting worried.  Before Will left on his trip I also told him "Don't forget your SPOT device.", and he said "I didn't renew the subscription, it's $99!".  And now at that moment I was pretty annoyed that he hadn't renewed his device because I could be tracking him online right then and knowing exactly where he was. Not only that, but the device also has the capability to send out distress signals to 911 if he was in need of help since there is no cell signal in the mountains.

I was on the phone with Marshall, who said he was on the phone with the police and having them go to the trailhead first to see if his car was parked there. He was thinking maybe he already left if the car was gone. I thought, even if that were true, "No, he would have stopped to call me, even if it was a pay phone. He knows I would be worried by now."

And it was right then, about 6:15 my phone beeped over and it was Will calling.

Goodness gracious!

I answered it "Where are you????"

He apologized and explained that he was okay and everything was fine. Before he could explain his story to me, I told him he needed to call Marshall and Doug right now and let them know he was okay before they went on a search party for him.

He called me back a few minutes later and explained to me that after he had left the guys the evening before, he hiked around quite a bit more looking for a camera lens that he lost.

This is the photo he took of the guys leaving as he was climbing back up a mountain...



He backtracked several times and could never find his lens, and by this time it was dark.  He decided it was too dangerous to scale back down the icy mountain in the dark, and so he slept on top.  Luckily he had his little one-man tent and sleeping bag so he was warm. But the next morning, he wasn't able to climb down until the sun hit the snow and melted the ice a bit because it was so slick.

You can see his pathway here.


I was relieved that he was okay, but SOOOOO annoyed that he worried me so much.  This was the first time I had seriously thought about calling the police or sending out a search party for him, and he felt really bad. But we both agreed it was better that he was safe and not trying to climb down an icy mountain in the dark.  For that I am thankful.

He will now be renewing his SPOT device.




Will also made it up to me with a date night later that week, and also helping out with the boys the following week.

Oct 16th, 2013 - Scout CampOut with Preston


The week after Will got back from his little Enchantments adventure, he did make it up to me with a date night and also taking Preston with him on a scouting trip so I only had to be at home with ONE child instead of two.  

Preston hiked 7 miles with the 12 year old scouts and kept up in every way just like the rest. What a champ.









In the Meantime - Computer Problems...

Back in August, my main music studio computer decided it was time to commit suicide.

The video card fried, which then fried the motherboard.

Completely dead.

It was perfect timing, to be honest, because during the entire month of August I was really fighting HORRIBLE morning sickness and so I ended up cancelling many music projects because I was so green in the face all the time.  I could not do anything.  So it was really the perfect time for my computer to call it quits.

Eventually, when I was feeling better, and tired of using up all of my data plan on my smart phone by using it as my main emailing device, Will and I went to Best Buy and bought me a $300 laptop to do email/internet on until I could afford to replace my music studio computer.


Replacing my studio computer was not going to be cheap.  We spent a lot of time researching computers and for everything I needed for music producing and video editing, it was to be several thousands of dollars.  Not your normal run-of the-mill in store computer.  

I didn't have that kind of money just laying around and so we were going to have to wait until my next royalty dispursment at the end of September.

In the meantime, I had music projects starting to come in...


I was able to make-do by hooking up my mircophone to my interface and into my puny laptop to record.  Thankfully none of the music projects I needed to get done were needing VST software, but it was all live audio recordings and I could do that with a mic. (My laptop was not beefy enough to handle VST software which required several hundreds of gigs of harddrive and lots of memory).


One piece I was working on was violin solo parts for a movie trailer, and it worked out great for what was needing to be done.

Eventually, when my royalties came in, I had sufficient funds to purchase my new studio computer and so at the beginning of October we started shopping....

One of the computer stores here in Seattle happens to have a 9 foot Steinway in it.  Was I in computer store heaven? YES.


This is how our boys handled the hours of computer shopping. 

Yes we bribed them with toys.


Eventually, we ended up getting this beauty:


The box for it was so large it wouldn't fit into our trunk, but the boys sure had a blast building forts out of the boxes after we took the computer out at home. 



And then, came the HOURS and hours Will spent setting the computer up.  10 bays for harddrives, installing new drives, transferring over my old drives, installing more RAM, and other stuff.


This computer is a high-end "gaming" computer and so it is built for lots of big files, video card work, and audio.  We've had it for 6 weeks and we are STILL not finished setting it up though....

Oct 19th, 2013 - Sparkle Pumpkins


Preston was a good helper and helped me put together these Pinterest Sparkle Pumpkins I had to make for a Relief Society Enrichment activity.

The funny thing is you can see Will in the background working on my computer haha.....


October 20-21st - Benaroya Hall Ensign Symphony Concert and STUFF

Not sure if I ever mentioned this but during the summer I auditioned and made it into the Ensign Symphony as the principal pianist. 

I hummed and ho'd about doing this because I was already busy with my own professional music career, but I had longed for the days when I was more involved in the Classical music world and I knew doing something like this would not only keep my playing chops up, but I also loved the commadry of playing with a group of musicians.



This was a brand new organization that is trying to reach the level and notoriety of the Seattle Symphony, and so the level of expectation and professionalism is very high.

Our first concert was Oct 21st, at the prestigious Benaroya Hall (where the Seattle Symphony performs), with Grammy nominated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker.  Rehearsals for this concert were intense, and we were expected to have practiced beforehand and know our music, show up on time, perform awesomely and professionally...and if you didn't, you were called out on it and it was quite embarrassing.


The few days leading up to the concert, we had EXTREMELY long rehearsals.  Some were 6 hours long and lasted until midnight. One night I didn't even get home until 1 a.m. in the morning.  I had to take Tylenol and a lunchbag just to last through the rehearsals.


I was also being featured on the concert program with Jenny on a few numbers as well.  Jenny and I had been friends for a couple of years, but this was our first time performing together.  I was as nervous as heck. I really wanted to impress her.  And the song that we were supposed to perform as a piano/violin duet together was extremely difficult.


Normally, I can sightread music quite easily and I only need at most 2 practices to know the music.  But this particular song was quite challenging and I found myself at home practicing HOURS on it, and even after hours of practicing it was still not perfect.


The evening before the concert, for our dress rehearsal, Jenny and I rehearsed privately in a room together and the song came together quite well (even though she made some changes to the music I wasn't prepared for).  

And the night of the concert, things went well too and I practiced a TON.


To be able to perform on Benaroya's concert stage was a check on my bucket list, and also to perform with Jenny was another neat thing as well.  So to me, the concert was no small deal.

I arrived early to the concert hall to hang out with Jenny in her dressing room so we could chit-chat and do hair/makeup together.  My wonderful friend Noelle drove over from eastern WA and did her hair/makeup, which turned out gorgeous.





We mostly chatted about the Grammy voting which was currently going on (Jenny has an album in Pop Instrumental again this year), and the drama all associated with that!  It was a fun time.

And then the concert...




(a photo of the hall prior to the beginning of the concert)... 


During my performance, I was so incredibly nervous. And of course, with my nerves comes mistakes in the music.  I remember specifically messing up in two different places in the music on my duet with Jenny and felt rather lame for it! Grr.

After our duet, there was one more piece where she and I were featured together and I did play that one flawlessly thank goodness.

Afterwards though, I was flooded with compliments from the audience after the concert was over.  I was so humbled, and also at the same time wondering if these people had their ears screwed on right?  Even my own musical mother didn't hear any of my mistakes.  And later in the week the president of the organization sent out a letter to all the performers saying he sat in the audience for some numbers (the ones I was performing on) and didn't hear a single flaw.  That is coming from a master conductor.

So whew.  Angels from heaven and God Himself must have saved me, because it appeared that only Jenny and I were aware of my mistakes.





I will say though, I was VERY VERY glad to have that concert overwith!!

Oct 31st, 2013 - HALLOWEEN!

Following my concert, and a few days of serious R&R to catch up on that, we began the Halloween festivities at our house.

Bring on the candy!


Our ward had its Halloween party the Saturday before Halloween, and so here are some photos from that....The boys wanted to be Firemen this year.  






Our ward Halloween party also happened to be the same night as Elizabeth and James' baby blessing for Everett, and so we went to that prior. Here is a photo of us at the blessing...






And then on actual Halloween day, we went to Will's Microsoft Employee Halloween Festival at the Microsoft campus where the boys got to trick-or-treat to the vendors, see the little train, and more.






I decided to dress up as a 5 month-along pregnant woman for Halloween. :)



What a difference when you turn to the side hahahahaha.

For dinner after the MS Halloween thing, we went and ate dinner at Ivars.








Even firemen need naps....


And a throwback to my childhood - here are my brothers and I for Halloween one year.


More Music Drama and Stress...

As if October wasn't already stressful enough with concerts, rehearsals, practicing, and music projects, we entered November with MORE.   And you thought pregnancy was a period of rest. Ha!

Once again, I was hired/commissioned to do more solo violin work for some more movie trailer music. This is through a colleague of mine that writes for a trailer music company in Germany that licenses music for major blockbuster films.

However, towards the end of October, I was going through kind of a hard time emotionally, physically, and well, hormonally.  Some women get post-partum depression. Well, I get PREGNANCY DEPRESSION.  I never quite feel like myself, I feel like crap, I struggle physically and emotionally.  Let's just say it is not something I enjoy but I do it for the love of our family and my calling as a mother.  But I do not "glow", I do not weap or enjoy it.  I just ENDURE.

Please don't judge me for it.  I know there are many women who would love to have children and can't.  But I will say we are all given our trials in life.  Trust me, I have mine.  Pregnancy is both a HUGE blessing, but also a trial for me.   I need a lot of prayer, endurance, and support during it.  The end.

So this music project I had to do, I was right in the middle of going through a week of really bad depression and I spent 3 hours recording and was NOT feeling the music. I played my worst to be frank.  And so I ended up having my friend Kelley sub-in on the violin part and she recorded it instead.


Just for kicks, a cute photo of our music guy Taylor at the piano. Yes, with gloves on. Ha.


The movie trailer music got done, and on time.

But I also had another project I needed to get done with a serious deadline.  A year ago I had agreed to do some music for a singer's debut album from NY, and during the course of that year the project had changed several times from me writing original music for him, to arranging music, and then finally in the end to simply being featured on the album as a guest soloist.


I had already spent a lot of hours on the project, and really wasn't getting paid for my work since I had agreed to an upfront fee (which I used up on babysitting fees to have someone watch my boys while I could work).  And then during my busy concert rehearsals I was informed I needed to have my solo part for this album written, recorded, edited all by Oct 30th - which at that point was about 5 days away.

I couldn't even concentrate on it because I had that concert.  But after it was over, I was able to finally get to work on it and YES it totally stressed me out.  I had about 4 days to get it done, and not only that but my new computer was not set up yet for this!  I could record live audio with a mic, but not piano VST software. 


So I spent almost ALL day long on the first 2 days just getting my computer set up. Trying to find drives, connect DLL files, VST. audio configuration and still could not get any sound to come from my piano software.  I even downloaded a new software as a plan B and couldn't get that one to make any sound either.  

 Finally after a lengthy phonecall with the tech support of my piano library company, I was up and running.  Luckily, somewhere in there, I had sat down at my acoustic piano and composed the part out and now only what remained was recording.  I actually paid my friend Erika to come over to our house to do administrative work for me because I had no time to get it done. She boxed up CD orders for me, filled out W9's, music library paperwork and also entertained and fed my boys for me. :)

The real motivating factor to all of this was the day this project was due, was also the day Will and I were planning to leave town on a getaway to British Columbia.

I literally finished my music files and uploaded them at 3pm, and we left the house at 4pm. All the while in between I was cleaning, moving laundry around and packing.

Nov 1st, 2013 - Romantic 10 year Getaway to Victoria, B.C.

We drove up to the island to drop off our boys to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa while we went to Victoria.  It seriously took a couple of hours in the car for me to unwind and realize I could now relax. I was DONE.   COMPLETELY done with any commissioned music projects or concerts and I could officially relax!!


Here is Taylor enjoying a bowl of shredded wheat with Grandpa...



It was an all-day adventure trying to get to Victoria Saturday morning though.  The wind and rain was really fierce, and they actually cancelled our 1pm ferry.  Luckily, we got on the 3pm one though.


We made it to our hotel about 5:30pm that evening, and just in time before it got dark and were able to get all settled in...


Pics of our hotel room (Or suite! We were upgraded!)





And then pics of the inside of the Empress Hotel....








Our room is actually the light at the very top with the balcony.


It was so nice to get away.  Since our 9th wedding anniversary is in March, and we are due to have our baby a week before it, we decided to instead celebrate our 10 year "First Date" anniversary.  Our first date was Nov 4th, 2003!

Our first night we went out to eat at a fish restaurant and just walked around and explored the hotel a bit.  The 2nd day we went and toured the Craigdarroch Castle. They had one of the most beautiful music rooms I'd seen, and the history of the home was very interesting.  They had 10 children, struck it rich in the coal business (he was the richest man in Canada), and then the fortune was fought over by the two eldest sons and the mother after the dad passed away.  Anyway, the house was auctioned off, became a hospital during WW1, then a school, then a music conservatory, and eventually in the last 25 it was sold for $1 to the government for nonprofit and is now a museum.  Crazy!











This is an OLD Steinway upstairs that they let me play on. It was pretty rickety. But fun.



I would have rather of played on this piano hahahahaha...






After touring the castle, we drove around Victoria and looked at the governor's mansion, and I just wanted to nap to be honest hahaha.


Oh! And I forgot to mention that we had breakfast at this AWESOME little cafe called The Blue Fox. We had to stand in line for an hour and a half to get a table, but it was well worth it.




Later that evening, we took naps in our hotel room and then went to dinner at the Empress Room - which was a 5-star dining establishment inside the Empress Hotel.

I really REALLY felt like a princess that evening....




We had 3 courses, and the first course I ordered Foir Gras, not knowing it was goose liver. I couldn't figure out what it was. I made Will try it, and he thought it was a mushroom. I kept picking at it with my fork and it looked weird....like an animal organ. I said "This almost looks like liver." And then I asked the waiter what it was and he said "goose liver".  GULP. I wanted to throw up.  I seriously had an upchuck reaction to that.

To say the least, I did not eat the liver. But I ate everything else around it.



And then onto our main courses. I had the salmon, and Will had a pork chop.




And then for desert, I ordered a PB brownie with orange zest ice cream.  You would not think this is what it was from looking at it, but it was DIVINE.


Will ordered an assortment of cheeses, fruit, and bread for dessert...


After dinner was over, we wanted to take a carriage ride but we weren't sure if they were still operating seeing how it was already 8:45 p.m. But we walked over to where the carriage rides were and waited. There didn't seem to be anyone there, so instead we walked around the parlament building for a bit....


Just then, a horse buggy pulled up to drop some people off and I got so excited!! So we quickly went over and asked the guy if he was still offering rides that night. He said no, he was heading in for the night but we were welcome to ride for free back to his horse storage facility but it was one-way. We would have to walk back.

We took him up on it!



It was freezing that night!! Good thing we had blankets. But it was worth it.  

We then walked like 3 miles back to our hotel. It was a nice quiet romantic walk actually.  Although, cardiovascularly I could have walked like 10 miles because I've been working out.  BUT the round ligament/muscle pain in my lower stomach was killing me and we had to stop a lot so I could sit down and give my stomach muscles a break.

The next morning, we went to breakfast at another popular breakfast cafe called The Jam.





And then we slowly made our way to Nanaimo which is further up on Vancouver Island.  I kept saying my goal for the trip was to find the perfect Nanaimo Bar (my favorite dessert) and why not go to the actual town of Nanaimo and get some?




We took an extremely scenic route to get there, but made it by 3pm and found two bakeries and stocked up on some delicious Nanaimo bars. Yum.  Will scored with some baguettes from the French Bakery.

We then caught the 5:45pm ferry back to Vancouver, and then drove home to our kids at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They were excited to see us and vice versa, but they didn't want to leave G&G's house. They have way too much fun there!  Taylor specifically told us to go and he would stay there. Haha.




Nov 5th, 2013 - BABY ULTRASOUND!

I was excited to be back home because the very next day we had our ultrasound scheduled to find out if the baby was healthy and what the sex was.

We had an early ultrasound at 13 weeks where the tech told us it looked like a boy.  But it was early, and well, ya never know. Things could change.  Although, Will was pretty sure she was right. He said "If she has been doing ultrasounds for 20 years, I think she knows what she is talking about."

And knowing this was most likely our last kid, of course  when we first found out we were pregnant I really wanted it to be a girl. With the "it looks like a boy" news, surprisingly, I was okay with it.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized we already had tons of boys stuff so it would be cheaper as we wouldn't need to go out and buy a bunch of girl clothes and bedding and so forth. Boys are also less emotional and we wouldn't have all the girl drama in our house (hopefully!).  And not to be selfish, but I would still get to be the princess of the house :) Hahahaha.

BUT...at the same time, there was a small part of me that wondered if it might be a girl afterall, and though I wasn't HOPING for it, I still held out until I saw the 20 week ultrasound.

And I didn't post this picture on FB because it was a little too immodest for everyone to see, but I will post it here. If you can't tell, it is QUITE obvious what baby #3 is....






This will be me:


Anyway now that we have the OFFICIAL word on the baby's sex, I feel like we can plan for this kid.  We can finally try to figure out a name, find bunkbeds for the older boys, and all of that.  Oh and the good news is that the ultrasound also showed that this baby is healthy - which is also important. :)

On that note, I've been taking pregnancy belly shots of myself along the way, mostly when I'm at the gym to keep consistent.  Sorry for the sweaty pics, but here is me for the past several weeks!   I'll post these and then I'm signing off! This pretty much brings us up to date! Baby #3 will be here via Csection either March 16th or 17th.



9 Weeks Pregnant..