It's a baby!

So, as my two blog readers know, we are having another baby. In the beginning, I decided I wanted to keep this one secret for awhile. It could just be mine and Max's own thing for awhile. I figured that would make the pregnancy go faster and also, I just didn't want to draw attention to myself. I ended up telling 2 close friends early on, but that was it! As many (still 2 readers?) of you know, I have had 2 miscarriages, so this is my 5th pregnancy. The positive to this is that I get early ultrasounds. I had one at 8 weeks and 12 weeks. The first ultrasound we saw a little jelly bean with a heart beat.  After our second ultrasound at 12 weeks, and seeing a healthy heartbeat and a wiggly baby, we decided it was time to tell family and friends. (I still debated if it was going to go on social media but in a moment I just decided to go with it.)

Here is a video we made to send to our parents. We ask the boys these same questions all the time and their answers always vary. They got extra distracted this time since we were outside.

Our ultrasound appointment went pretty great. The boys really seem so excited about this baby. They loved hearing the heart beat and they seemed to like seeing the baby wiggle around. The ultrasound tech kept complimenting how good our boys were being which is always nice to hear (we actually don't hear that very often, haha) At the end, the tech said she had a guess about the gender, but she wanted to talk to the doctor about it first. She left and shortly thereafter the doctor returned and said everything looked great and healthy. When we asked about the gender, she said she wouldn't say anything because they had been wrong a lot. We were kind of bummed. We knew it is early but we were just curious on what they thought. Oh well, we'll figure it out eventually. I'm totally happy with another boy or our first little girl.

 

But I did love the the tech printed out an individual photo for each boy, they were excited to have their own picture of our baby!

Max ended up taking these on my phone. 

 

 And here are a couple more images from the scan.

So there you have it, we will be a family of 5, which still scares me. I think there is a moment each day where I realize I'm struggling with the 2 kids I already have. But then I remember how much love we had for each of our boys as they entered our family and how quickly it felt like our family would be incomplete without them. And for those of you dying to know, I've been sick, pretty nauseous. I'm pretty sure it's been worse this time. I don't throw up, and usually eating something helps but most foods sound gross (especially healthy ones) and sometime foods don't help beat the nausea. Also, in all my pregnancies, I've had 2nd trimester headaches, which started much earlier this time, so that's fun. Hopefully the nausea will pass soon, and I get more energy. Anyway, the point is, we are pretty excited!

Oh yeah, and here is a belly picture we took at 11 weeks. (I'm nearing 14 now, but haven't taken a new one yet)
 

4th of July

We filled our fourth of July with a lot of family, friends, and a whole lot of celebrating. We started the day by going to a Breakfast held in Richard and Marissa ward, which is also my Grandma's ward and many people from the ward Max and I grew up in. (ward=church group or congregation) At the breakfast they had a bike parade and a pancake breakfast. Miles quickly realized that he like William's bike more than the one he brought so he kept them both safe. We started with decorating bikes and then parked them and got in line for our food. 

Waiting in line for food, something must have been funny!

After a pancake breakfast the kids wildly rode around on their bikes

 When the breakfast was over, we decided to go visit green grandma who lives just a couple blocks up the street. Charlie rode his bike with Max while I drove Miles and his bike.

We had a nice visit, and the boys always love playing with the most excellent toys that Uncle Gary has invented. We then went home to get the kids some lunch and get Miles a nap. While Miles was napping, Charlie and I went to the store to pick up a couple things for our BBQ later and so Charlie could pick out the candy he wanted to throw in the parade.
When Miles woke up we made our way to Red Grandma's house to celebrate some more and to participate in the Middle of Millen Drive Parade. We attend this parade every year, and it's a lot of fun, but we (mostly me) were super excited to find out that Charlie's taekwondo class would be participating in the parade. Charlie hasn't decided how he feels about taekwondo yet. His very first class, he was having a blast but then in the last 30 seconds of class, they were playing a running game and he and a girl in his class were running full speed and collided into each other and Charlie's glasses cut his face. He left that class grumpy and has not been excited to go back even though he does enjoy it once he starts class. Anyway, for the parade he kept saying he didn't want to wear his uniform and he didn't want to be in a parade but he DID want to throw candy. But I made him try the parade, and told him that he could stop when we passed Grandma's house if he wanted which was only a block in.

 

Charlie's face looked like this in all the photos...

 But, I seriously love his taekwondo class and his teacher (in the center with sunglasses) is so great with the little ones. So here is their information. I would totally recommend them and you can do month long trials for such a cheap price!

He started passing out candy before the parade started.

Once the parade started, he realized he liked to go up to people individually and hand them a candy. For some people he even put the candy directly into the candy bag. It didn't take long before he was far behind his taekwondo group. He kept going after we passed Grandma's house because he still had more candy and he saw more people he wanted to share it with. 

 
Once his candy was gone, I told him he could run up to find the rest of his group or run back to daddy and Miles to watch the rest of the parade. He decided to watch the rest of the parade and gather his own candy.

 As the parade was ending, Richard and Marissa came to meet up with us and BBQ at my grandma's house. We found out that one of the fire trucks from the parade was parked a couple houses down and they were letting kids climb on and explore it. So we went down the street to check that out.

And there are a bunch of second cousins... Evan, Lexi, Miles, Chloe, and Charlie. 

and Mr. William!

 

Charlie was really into checking out his candy. Althought there seemed to be very few he actually liked. He kept tasting pieces of candy and then spitting them out because they were gross. All except the smarties.

 

We played at my grandma's house for hours, and BBQ'd dinner. Around 8pm we walked over to the high school to pick out a spot to watch the firework show. Max and Richard took Lacey and Charlie to go participate in the sack races, while William and Miles got themselves comfortable. 

 

We read books (thanks for taking these photos Marissa) 

 we colored and ran around, played soccer and waited for it to get dark.

 We only lost the kids briefly a couple times in the huge crowds. We're not bad parents, they just run really fast and think we can see them.

While waiting for the fireworks, they start playing music through the stadium speakers and everyone gets up and dances. Here is Max doing his Gangham style...

Charlie's understanding of dancing involves running laps!

 
But Lacey's dance moves were the best and she would not stop dancing as long as music was playing!

At last the firework show started. All the kids loved it and liked yelling BOOM after each explosion! 

Charlie likes this picture because he says it looks like a person.  So there's that.

 After the firework show, we walked back to my grandma's house and Richard set off a couple fountain fireworks that they brought, then they went home and we went inside grandma's house to get the boys in pajamas and brush their teeth in hopes they would fall asleep on the way home. It didn't work but they did fall asleep quickly once they got to their beds. It was a great and fun filled day, celebrating our country!