for the growing family...

santa brought mama a new car for Christmas! gotta make room for an extra carseat!! i'm just a LITTLE bit excited...

next year...

hard to believe next year on Christmas Eve, there will be two babies decorating cookies for santa:)

14 weeks.

these pics were on Christmas day, 13w6d.

in the last two weeks, i've suddenly popped out a baby belly!!  with brady, i think i couldn't button my regular jeans by around 10 weeks. but am a little later this time around. until about 12 weeks, my pants were fine until late in the evening. this week especially though, i can't button them in the mornings either:)  it's exciting to see physical progress with my pregnancy, it's the best part i think. i'm starting to finally look pregnant to people who wouldn't know otherwise. it's about time to announce on facebook...just waiting to find out our gender results and then i'll do a grand reveal of "hi i'm pregnant" and "it's a..." all at once.  want to do something different this time around, and since we're finding out the gender earlier than with brady, that makes it fun & different.

i'm finally starting to feel better most days. the mornings are definitely my worst time of day for nausea but once i eat breakfast, it usually resolves for the rest of the day. unless i just wait too long to eat, then it will creep back in. i am still terribly nauseated by the sight/smell/thought of coffee, but not having as much nausea for "no reason."  i also feel like i have more energy now for normal stuff & not feeling like i want to nap every other second. starting to get into the best part of pregnancy, the 2nd trimester!

more updates coming soon with hopefully, a GENDER reveal.

i've been feeling girl for about four weeks or so now, so that's my guess. we'll see soon!

it's a first.

at 14 weeks today, i had to bust out the belly band today because i finally couldn't button my jeans! exciting to see the tiniest of baby bumps developing...

Christmas Eve service.

Christmas Eve services at church. we loved the candlelight service as usual & it was fun to sit together for our last Christmas as a family of three. trying to soak up every second of this season with bubby at the perfect age to enjoy it all.  oh! and every SINGLE time we ask brady, "does mommy have a baby brother or a baby sister in her tummy?" he says, "baby sister!" :)

date night.

last night we had a little date night to old town for mike's work holiday party. we had the best time hanging out with his partners & also announcing my pregnancy more publicly! i sipped happily on coke the whole evening and laughed a lot with the other wives, and was so glad to feel well enough to go to one of their social events finally (we missed one in early november because i couldn't drag myself off the couch in the throes of early nausea).  yay for nearing the end of my first trimester!

12 weeks or 13?

we had bloodwork & an ultrasound today.  because i'll be 35 at delivery, we qualify for extra genetic testing and the AWESOME news is that we'll find out the gender sooner (in a couple weeks hopefully).  anyway, since my 6 week ultrasound showed baby with a different gestational age than my period dates suggested, we adjusted my due date from 6/24/15 to 7/3/15.  however, at today's ultrasound the tech said baby is measuring a full week ahead, making the due date 6/26/15 and obviously closer to my period dates.  so i'm not sure if i'm 12 weeks tomorrow, or 13 weeks, but i'm going with 13 in my mind! i'll find out from my regular OB in a couple weeks if we'll keep that adjusted date.  fingers crossed.  however...WHEN will this nausea subside if i'm really further along?!

i think baby apostle is already really cute:)

'tis the season.

i absolutely love this time of year, the lights and the fireplace, and naps on the couch taking it all in. even maggie was up for a nap today!

entertaining & surviving.

my nausea strangely gets worse as the day goes on, and the only relief i have is eating every 90 minutes to 2 hours.  by the end of the day, i'm usually barely keeping my food down (so far, though, no puking- thank goodness!) and coming up with ways to entertain bubs isn't easy.  mike works or has school a lot of evenings, so we do a lot of couch snuggles, reading, and ipad "purple" time.  i'm not ashamed to say i've plugged him in often just so i can lay on the couch and read or watch tv or something else to distract myself from the relentless nausea waves. the nausea stopped with brady around 12 weeks, and i'm almost there now, so hoping it starts to subside soon...thankfully i have figured out that eating does help, so i just keep snacks close by and it's manageable for the most part. at this point, whatever we need to do to survive our evenings together is a-okay with me!

december thaw.

this week has been absolutely beautiful weather, so this afternoon before naptime we took the golf cart up to the tavern and got fries for mama to snack on along with a purple gatorade (brady's fave) and enjoyed the perfect blue sky and some golf practice together. i love these days together so much!

beautiful weather.

we enjoyed a long walk to the playground today with lindsay & her girls for some play and lunch. the weather has been in the 60s and is really refreshing for me to get out of the house (and distracted from the nausea) for a bit. i think for brady too, he was happy as a clam at the park!