rex thanksgiving and an early christmas

this year for thanksgiving the rex family made the trek to utah! it was SO much fun spending time with everyone and watching all the kiddos play. julia and aaron hosted all of us for a beautiful and delicious meal. it was so so so yummy.

later that night, we celebrated christmas early since we wouldn't all be together for the christmas holiday. it was really fun having just our family and being able to see all the kids open their gifts. we sang songs, did the traditional nativity and got spoiled by grandma rex.

oh baby baby

and now the big reveal...

baby rex coming soon! it feels SO good to get this out in the open. keeping it a secret for 12 weeks has been pure torture. we've told our families and now we are shouting it from the roof tops. 

baby rex is coming the first week of june... and we couldn't be happier about it! 

a special thanks to everyone who has supported and loved us through this last year. we have gone through a lot and we know that because of your thoughts and prayers we have been able to keep our eyes towards heaven and trust in our Heavenly Father. we know that this baby is and will continue to be a blessing in our lives and we can't wait for he or she to meet all the lovely people here on earth that helped their parents become who we are today. 

five months later

on the evening of september 25th i took a pregnancy test. i looked at the time and began to wait those long 3 minutes. i was scared. i know what i wanted to see on that little stick, but i didn't know if it was in the cards. was it the right time for us? did Heavenly Father trust me to be a mother? there are so many things we don't have figured out. i wanted it SO bad. i felt like it was going to happen, but i was terrified to look. then i looked. it was positive. tears streamed from my eyes as i fell to my knees to pray. i thanked Him over and over for this blessing that i had prayed so hard for. i was in shock. i was so happy. i sat on the bathroom floor and cried tears of joy. i will never forget those precious moments where i felt so close to heaven. the moments that i shared with my Heavenly Father. He let me know that He heard me, that He trusted me, that He believed in me.

it was 5 months to the day of taking my last pregnancy test on april 25th.

i've tried to keep a record of my experiences this far with being pregnant. here are a few thoughts i have been jotting down...

week 7-8:
keeping it a secret has been really hard. at about 5 weeks i started feeling super nauseous. luckily i haven't vomited yet and i am hoping to keep it that way. feeling sick all day long makes it pretty hard to pretend like i am completely fine. i feel super bloated already. most of my pants stopped fitting around week 7. i'm constipated. i never feel like getting dressed up. i don't want to blow dry or curl my hair, put on make up or wear anything other than my stretchy pants and a baggy tee. if only i could pull off that "i just woke up looking fabulous and messy" look. nope. not me folks. my sense of smell is like crazy sensitive. i hate it. it is super annoying. i can no longer eat anything with garlic or brussel sprouts. just typing it out just now makes me queasy. yuck.
i feel huge. i think i'm in that weird "i look and feel fat, but you can't tell i am pregnant yet" phase. i really hope i feel pretty again at some point. it's really lame feeling ugly all the time, even when i do muster up the energy to put on make up and do my hair. but i suppose this is all proof that a miracle is happening inside of me. that a little baby is in there growing and slowly taking up all the room. so i am okay with it. i will try my best to grin and bear it because i know that one day months from now i will wonder how it all happened so fast.

weeks 8-10:

the nausea, hightened sense of smell, constipation, cravings and gas are all still going strong.  luckily i have medicine so that helps a ton! still keeping it under wraps and it is getting harder. i feel like my belly is growing and looking more like i'm showing. we were going to wait until thanksgiving to tell everyone, but i think it will happen sooner. 

on october 28th, tyler and i went to my ultrasound appointment. we saw our baby! based on the first day of my last period i thought i was at 8 weeks and 4 days, but the ultrasound technician said that i am measuring at 9 weeks and 1 day. we saw the heart beating in our baby, the ultrasound tech said that it was strong, 160. she also said that since we've seen a heartbeat that the chance of miscarriage goes down to only 5%... we are both really excited. i couldn't stop smiling the entire time. now that we both realize that this is actually happening we are so happy and excited. i cant wait to see our baby again!

weeks 10-12:

well either i got the flu or i am just having awful morning sickness. i ran out of my nausea medicine for a few days and i threw up twice. it was bad. luckily the doctor was able to get me another prescription, but this new medicine makes me drowsy. after one day of taking it and being completely wiped i decided to cut each pill in half. that has been working really well. my nausea subsides and i can stay awake! yay! i hit 12 weeks on sunday november 17th. we can finally tell our families and friends! i cannot wait to be done with keeping this secret! guys, i am terrible at keeping secrets. like really terrible. 

carving pumpkins

happy halloween!!! for the first time in almost 6 years of marriage we finally carved pumpkins together! it was fun, but i forgot how hard it was. i still had tons of fun though, as we were carving we both realized that carving pumpkins is probably our favorite thing about halloween! i think it will be a tradition from now on.

happy halloween!

oak glen

every autumn i LOVE to visit oak glen for apple picking season. they have apple donuts, apple cider and the scenery is amazing. this year we went with our good friends, brad, ashli and claire caldwell. we love them. it was such a beautiful day. we ate good food and walked around the little festivals at the various farms.

i can't wait for next year!!!

on my heart: some thoughts about parenting

just a few more days until i head to utah and then rexburg to visit family and friends. i am super excited to see this cutie and my nephews! this is a photo of her when she turned two back in august. that girl is so spunky and hilarious. don't get me wrong, i love my nieces and nephews on the rex side, but there is some sort of connection that i have with brylee that i just don't know how to describe. i think it was because kimberly and i became so close while she was pregnant or maybe because i was able to photograph her birth story and feel the tangible love fill the room when she was born. it was as if heaven existed in the room, for just a moment.

sometimes i think about becoming a mother and i feel an overwhelming joy and peace come over me. other times i feel a bit nervous for the future of carrying a child to term, staying healthy and delivering a healthy baby, raising a family and providing for them temporally and spiritually. there is so much that goes into being a parent and sometimes that scares me. but then i think about brylee. i think about the day she was born, how we all waited for her and prayed for her to be healthy and strong when she came to earth. i think about embracing my brother in law as we both cried in awe of how perfect she was. it was love at first sight. we knew she was special as soon as we saw her. i didn't know that i would feel so attached to her, but i did. i would visit her and my sister all the time. it was so fun to watch my sister and her husband become parents and to help them when brylee came.

since that day 2 years ago i have grown to love brylee even more. she has taught me so much about love. i love her so much that i could just play with her all day. hearing her call my name "eh-my" through the house just melts my heart. i never knew that could happen, to feel this crazy overwhelming love for another human being just because they say your name. i love that girl so much i would change her poopy diapers over and over and over again. watching her giggle, smile and learn is so rewarding and as an aunt i just get a tiny piece of it. seeing what i see and feeling the love i do, i can't even imagine how it feels as a parent. it must feel like you could burst at any moment.

but things about caring for a child aren't often very glamorous. sometimes i see these mommy bloggers and think that they make things seems so perfect all the time. parents and children dressed like they stepped out of a gap commercial, their nurseries decorated like a catalog and their husbands supportive and happy all the time. but that isn't reality! life it tough sometimes. with the sweet comes the bitter. sometimes there are blow out diapers and puke stains that come with the beautiful moments in life. but i wouldn't trade a poopy diaper if it meant one less smile or laugh. i wouldn't trade a whine or a tantrum for the sound of my name echoing through the hallways.

i know i have such a small glimpse of what it is to care for a child. my body has never given birth to, breastfed or watched over a child. but i know what i know and from my view the sacrifices, whether they be fashion, body fat percentage, money, time or sleep in no way amount to the joys of becoming a parent. so when you are nervous about being a first, second or fourth time mother, just remember that heaven that you feel when a baby is born. remember how your heart feels like it's going to burst when that baby says your name. remember how your world seems right somehow when those chubby hands wrap their hands around your neck.

for me, when the time comes, i will do my best to remember that no matter how many hard moments there are... all the precious ones are worth it.

they are all worth it.