Saturday Smiles :)

First off, had a great birthday! Dustin and I spent the night at the Anniversary Inn, went to tablerock to watch the sunset, and had dinner at my favorite resturaunt, Asiago's (a local Italian place, soooooo good). The next day I had some quality time with my mom and when I got home Dustin had this cake for me: 

 It said, Happy Birthday Mom, love Dad and Melody :) It was my favorite, Brownie batter ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, mmmm :) 

Today we had a great day, spent a lot of wonderful time together. 

Duzzy played some hymns from the Children's songbook for us while Melody and I listened. We also sang for her and I pressed my belly against the piano so she could feel the vibrations of the instrument as well as hear the sounds. (She's been able to hear us for the last week or so!)

And the dogs just sat and enjoyed the music with us :) We hope Melody will have a love of music just like Dustin and I do, and we hope to begin her love of it early by singing for her and playing songs for her often! 

Hope everyone's having a great week!

23 :)

So, tomorrow I am going to be 23. It seems weird now to have birthdays when I am an adult. The year of being 22 was fabulous and one of the best of my life! I loved every minute! Now, being 23 will present a whole new life. It seems like a good age to be, a good age to have my first child, a good age to have my first home. I am happy. Though in other areas of my life, I have faced quite a bit of trials in the last year, I have still been extremely happy. 

Tonight we are headed to the Anniversary Inn!!! I love this place soo much! :) We are going to be staying in Sleeping Beauty's Castle room, which is one of the nicest rooms they have and is a two story room which is pretty awesome! If you've never been, I highly recommend this place!

www.anniversaryinn.com

You really get the royal treatment when you go, and every room we've stayed in is great! They have these hotels in Idaho and Utah, definitely go!!!

On another note, in 2 days I will be 20 weeks pregnant, half way done! My little girl is now as long as a banana, 10 inches from head to feet! She is not the most active (at least that I am able to feel yet) and usually requires a bit of prodding to get moving, but I can feel her little kicks now and Dustin too was able to feel her which was very cool! :) In her ultrasound Dustin said she kicks like a soccer player, I think he is having visions of his little girl being a soccer player like he is :) 

We will post pics soon! Found the camera, now just gotta charge it :)

My girly side coming out :)

Okay, so let me just say as a precursor that having a girl really has started to bring out the girly-ness in me :) I have made her bracelets from a little kit I bought about a year ago (you know, just in case) and my newest addiction, making headbands. The tricky cool part of these is that I will demonstrate how versatile they are! 

//Warning: These are all bad-quality cell phone pics!!! Sorry!!//

First, I bought a lot of silk flowers and took the tops off. I also purchased ribbon and got a crash course on making bows (you can see one or two below), which cost mucho mucho at the store or to buy already made but making them yourself is cheap! :) I also purchased alligator clips (you can get these from Sally's or even Walmart and they are also cheap). You can hot glue the flowers or bows you have made to these clips. 

Next, you can either make or buy lots of cute crochet headbands in various colors. I got mine off Ebay and got 20 of different colors for like 15 bucks. Not too shabby, but if you are good at crocheting I'm sure you can find out how to make them. I'm not good at crochet so I didn't tackle it. Also I want to add that these fit newborn to adult! They stretch but also bounce back to their original shape. So you can use them for a long time. 

Last, you can do hundreds of combinations of flower or bow plus headband (insert alligator clip in holes of headband) to match tons of different outfits. I have not yet had an outfit I couldn't match. Plus, you can save the flower clips and bows for when your little one has hair or for yourself. (I have been wearing the flower clips lately in my hair) I demonstrated the matching versatility with some outfits we received on Saturday..

Trickiest because of the gold emblem but I went with a white headband and pink flower

One of the bows I made (you can't tell but it matches some of the green threading in the shirt) and a pink headband to also compliment the colors in the shirt

This one worked really well, you just can't tell in the picture :) 

And who doesn't love purple with a cute white daisy?

Any way, so that's me on my soapbox for the day :) This girl is gonna be lookin' cute if I have anything to say about it!

Home Sweet Home

So I thought I'd post something exciting! We put an offer on our first home! We low-balled it so we expect a counter, but it's a buyer's market so you never know! So here's the scoop!

* 3 beds, 2 baths

* 1600 sq feet

* Cute front porch

* RIGHT across from community park and children's playground

* In Southwest Boise, off Lake Hazel

* BRAND NEW!! Never lived in! :)

So we are really excited!! We should know in the next couple weeks after all of our offering and counter-offering is complete, but we're really pulling for it because we love it and it's a great neighborhood, very family oriented. Oh, and the elementary school is just a couple blocks away through another neighborhood!! So yeah, exciting stuff!! :) We've already determined Melody's room, the guest room, and ofcourse our master is awesome with an oval tub and a walk in closet!! I never thought I'd live in a brand new home, but I am stoked!

IT'S A...

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, there is so much to tell right now, it's crazy! :) First off, let me say that I was not expecting a girl in the least! I was sure it was a boy :) The girls that I work with all guessed that it would be a girl because I was very sick for the first 15 weeks or so, and they said that they have not seen somebody who got that sick have a boy! So I suppose all that sickness was worth it!

I woke up bright and early, I took a nice long bath and pampered myself a bit, then Dustin and I had to do things to keep our minds occupied because we were just so excited!! He had to watch TV and I looked over and saw his legs shaking!! :-D 

We made a bet going in and put stipulations on it... 

we get prizes if we win :) Well I got unlucky because I guessed boy and he guessed girl, so he is our winner this time!! :) 

We went in to Fetal Fotos (we love this place) and I thought I had to drink 32 oz of water. Well when I got there they told me I DIDN'T have to so the first thing I did was pee...and pee and pee... then we went in for the ultrasound!!

The first 40 minutes or so were spent trying to get our stubborn little girl to open those legs and show her goods! She was moving so much that it was hard to get a good shot! We got to see her little body and her legs and arms move, we saw her open her mouth, and then finally we zeroed in and saw that she was, indeed, a little girl!!!!! I was shocked and was totally speechless at first, then they rolled me on my side and I started crying tears of joy!! I was so mesmerized, I loved her instantly. 

It was one of THE GREATEST moments of my entire life so far!

And right away, I have settled with the name we discussed that I loved. Dustin and I have both been so in to music since we met, it is a big part of our lives, so we have decided to name our little one Melody!! It is very fitting if you know us. Not sure on her middle name!

I was so happy that the rest of the ultrasound was kind of a blur. Dustin was just BEAMING and has not stopped shouting for joy that he will have a little girl!! He wants to get pink everything, I am trying to make sure we get gender neutral of that which we can reuse :) ;) !!

Oh, and in the ultrasound they flipped over to 3D and we got to see our little Melody's adorable little profile. Almost immediately after they flipped in to 3D, she put her left hand up to her mouth and started sucking her thumb!!! :-D We've got a thumb sucker, taking after her nana, Grandma Wright :) Or so they say :) 

It was so cute to see my little princess move and suck her thumb and kick me which I do occasionally feel now!!!! :-D 

I still can't believe it's a girl, but I am so in love with her. I dream of the pink, the bows, the future dance (and soccer) classes, having to teach her about boys and makeup and dating, having her daddy waiting at the door with a shot gun when the prom date arrives, holding her in my arms when she cries (which if she is like mommy she certainly will!!!).

Today was such a beautiful day for me and I get teary eyed when I think of my little one. I am so excited to be a mommy to my beautiful Melody. And I can't wait to see how she tugs on Dustin's heart strings

This is turning out to be a long post but I am just soooo excited!!! I can't even explain!!!!!! My heart is just so full right now... We announced to my parents by bringing a bouquet of pink balloons in and some pink krispy kreme donuts!! :) They were sooo excited and totally surprised since they all thought it was a boy!! :-D 

We are sooo excited and will post more pics soon!!

Just last weekend I was complaining that I will never show, I will just look big forever, not pregnant. Somebody was listening. I still am a big girl so obviously it's not immediately noticeable even yet, but I would say this is progress in 2 weeks, wouldn't you? Yes, 2 weeks *blush* For losing 10 lbs though since getting pregnant, it looks like it's not affecting the little one. Just another point to mention, the first picture is closer up than the second, I couldn't get them exactly the same proportion for size. Any way :) I told Dustin if this is my belly at 17 weeks then I am going to be a huge oompa loompa when this is all over, lol! :)

Pregnancy...yes, it is a wonderful thing, and I am so grateful to be pregnant! But is definitely not all glamour and glow! :) That glow you hear of, that's probably the excess oil which creates the extra zits that Dustin so lovingly calls my 'braille' on my forehead, lol! I have found that I am sleeping a LOT more. I can easily clock in 12 hour sleeping shifts. I could do that before once in a while too but now it seems a more frequent thing. I told Dustin I felt like all I did this past weekend at the cabin was sleep, it was kind of true :) But sometimes sleeping is the only thing that cures the nausea, and my justification is that after the baby I won't get to sleep like this so I am livin' it up right now!! :)

It's crazy how attached I have become to the baby in the last few weeks. I talk to it and beg for it to move so I can feel, lol. I know it's still early, and I am sure my little rascal is moving all the time, just can't yet feel it!! :) :) In 14 days we find out! Yes, my friends, this is a countdown and I am starting it now! Only 2 weeks!!!! YAY!

We couldn't find our camera for our super fun cabin trip, but sufficeth to say I am sure I can squander a few pics from other friends. We had a great time. We roasted smores, played games, sang, and so much more. It was my first trip to the cabin and I loved it! We had a few issues arise with everything but we managed to stay alive :) :). Thank you friends for spending a great weekend with us!

Will write more later! I am trying to update you guys more! :)