September fun and pregnancy details

Hello all!

Not a ton going on, but I thought it was time to update everyone. 

At the beginning of September Sonnie, Shae, and Alex drove out from Indiana to drop off Shae in Provo for her next semester of school. It was the 2nd time seeing Sonnie in a short period of time and was so much fun! We went out to eat almost every night and ate soooo much good food! We also had an extremely fun time just chatting and laughing all together. I love when they get to visit! 

September started out warm and then suddenly turned into fall. Honestly, it was different weather from one day to the next. One morning we woke up and it was cool, crisp, and very windy. Autumn blew in and has been here since. I'm not surprised when its in the 30's or 40's in the morning, although the afternoon often gets into the 60's and 70's. But fall is definitely in the air. It has been so much fun wearing cozy warm fall clothing. And I am finally getting around to finger knitting myself a scarf (a few years back I did a few for some family members, and now its my turn). 

Jessica, Kristen, and I got to go to the lantern festival together. It is this awesome event where there's live music, food trucks, campfires and s'mores, and everyone gets to light and send off a paper lantern (Tangled style). When we arrived it was a stormy evening and we were sure we were about to get rained on. The storm took another direction and we stayed dry the whole evening. When it finally got dark enough we were given the go ahead to light our lanterns. It's not as easy as it sounds. The part the catches fire was did not catch easily. I stood with mine over fire for a good two minutes (at least) while a random stranger helped me get it to light on fire. Once you finally light it on fire you have to hold it near the ground while the lantern fills with warm air. Mine did so quickly, but not everyone was so lucky. When it finally fills with warm air it starts "tugging" to get away and you can simply let go as it floats into the night sky. However, many lanterns did not want to leave earth. They attempted to ascend and then quickly returned to earth, becoming a rolling fire ball (okay, I may be exaggerating a little...). It was a comical sight though. If you are able to look past that into the sky you are granted a gorgeous view. Just as beautiful as the Tangled scene, lanterns crowd the night sky as they float away. I tried to capture the moment with pictures, but they just don't do justice. It was such a fun evening with my sisters!

I also got to go on a hike with McKay, Chandler, and Shae one Saturday. We decided to go to Big Cottonwood Canyon and on our way up to the trail head saw two moose run across the road! We pulled over and got out to get a better look, but they had already made it down the hill and across a small river. Still a neat sight to see! Our hike was beautiful! At the half way point we reached a small lake and got to see a mama and baby moose enjoying lunch. We decided to eat our own lunch as we watched them. The mama saw us and didn't seem alarmed, so we picked a bunch of rocks that were a safe distance from the moose and unpacked our lunch. We were still pretty darn close to them and it was just amazing watching them! What beautiful animals! 

A quick side story: we had Chinese food one evening in the past month. I opened my fortune cookie and was given this fortune. Pretty hilarious!

Alright, I know I kinda dropped a bomb on everyone in my last post and didn't even give any details. So here it goes. 

Yes, I am pregnant. We found out in June and are completely overjoyed! I had ended up taking a round of Clomid (the drug that forces my body to ovulate). Often times the first cycle is not successful, but we just happened to get lucky. We are extremely grateful and ecstatic for this pregnancy, but we do feel a little bittersweet. The reason for the bittersweet feeling is we have now become an announcement that was so difficult for us before. We have found so many of our friends struggle with infertility too. So many of them have comforted, supported, and lifted me up in hard times. My wish is that, because we also struggled with infertility for over three years, our success might give hope to those that are still struggling. We still pray for all of the couples we know that are struggling and think of you often. <3

The pregnancy has been  surprisingly easy. I was blessed with good genes (like my sisters) and haven't had to deal with a lot of morning sickness. Just a little nausea here and there. Some aches and pains, but nothing terrible. I try to not take this for granted and express my thanks to Heavenly Father often! I probably started showing a little baby bump around 12-13 weeks and would definitely say that I've popped now (just about 20 weeks). I started feeling the baby moving after 17 weeks and boy is that a happy thing! 

We got to go in for our anatomy scan this past week and it was soo fun to see a baby (that actually, finally, looks like a human baby!) inside my belly! Because we waited so long for this baby we wanted to celebrate and asked if Jessica would do a gender reveal for us. So during the ultrasound, both McKay and I looked away as the technician checked the gender of the baby. Jessica had already planned everything so we didn't have to wait too much longer to find out the gender. The next day we had family gather together (Sonnie and Alex, and Carli were in town again!) and had a little party. When it was time for the reveal Jessica brought out a canvas with the words "For this child we have prayed" she had painted on! She gave us two squirt bottles with paint inside and on the count of three we attempted to squirt the paint all over the canvas (blue paint for a boy, pink paint for a girl). Well, the paint would not come out of the bottles! We looked at Jessica, confused. She said it wasn't planned, but man was it funny! We quickly unscrewed the cap and started gobbing the paint on the canvas. It was white paint...? More confusion as we tried to spread it around and figure the riddle out. Turns out it is glow in the dark paint. We rushed inside to a dark room where the paint glowed.........PINK! We are having a baby girl! We are extremely excited to bring a daughter into our family and cannot wait to meet her in March 2018! 

Our baby girl!