Baby Aaron

Today was my 20 week ultrasound and it was so much fun to see my beautiful, growing baby boy! He is definitely a boy and he is measuring exactly on schedule. It was exciting to see his little heart, spine, stomach and so on and everything looked perfect and healthy! This ultrasound was so much different than the 15 weeks ultrasound, because this time he was facing my back and appeared to be sound asleep with just a few wiggles and his hand moving by his face. Because he was facing my back we couldn't get any pictures of his face or profile. It made me very grateful that we were able to see everything at 15 weeks and get some wonderful shots of him. The ultrasound tech tried really hard to get around his head and get a shot of his face, but his head was pretty far down and completely facing my back. So we didn't get any great pictures, but I was just happy to see him and know that he is healthy and growing right on schedule! Jon was taking a final, but my grandma was able to come with me which was a really special experience. She had never seen an ultrasound before and thought it was incredible. Unless there is a need for it, we probably won't see our little guy again until he is born about 20 weeks from now. I'm so happy to be almost half way there!

Done!

I am officially done with Statistics FOREVER!!! I just finished my final and I don't know that I have ever been so ready and relieved to be rid of a class. It was one of the classes I was seriously dreading for my major, so I decided to get it out of the way shortly after starting at BYU, and boy am I glad I did! I really want to celebrate, but I still have more studying and a lot to get done before we fly out on Thursday, and then I will get to celebrate for about three weeks! I just had to share my JOY that this class is OVER!

Stretchy Skirt

Whenever I wear my new maternity jeans my brother Brian, who currently lives with us, sings; "That girl's got stretchy pants." I don't know what the song is from, but so far it had only related to my pants. Up until today I have been able to wear all of my usual church outfits without any problem. This morning I grabbed one of my favorite skirts from the closet, pulled it on and there was NO way it was zipping up. I sat on the bed discouraged because I felt like I had nothing to wear... Jon came in and cheerfully went through the closet for me, pulled out a skirt and said, "Here, this one is STRETCHY!" Something about the way he said it, so eager for me not to be upset with my shrinking wardrobe, made me laugh REALLY hard. It actually turned out okay and I am grateful for a husband who helps me laugh when I am taking things too seriously.

Me in my "stretchy" skirt.

Showing

Okay, okay, so maybe I wasn't showing as much as I thought I was showing in the previous "baby bump" pictures I posted from weeks 14 and 15. I am now 19 weeks along and I can literally feel this little baby growing every day! I am now showing for real, at least I FEEL like I am and people have actually started telling me I look pregnant. Of course I realize that this baby has a long way to grow, but it's just so weird to feel my abdomen expanding every week. He is up to my belly button now, but I just don't understand where all my organs are supposed to go if he keeps getting higher! Lol. I have been feeling pretty great however, with absolutely no morning sickness for a while now and relatively normal levels of energy(although I still have days where I feel like I need extra sleep). So I'm in a pretty nice stage of pregnancy where I'm not feeling sick and my tummy isn't getting in the way. I can't wait to see our little guy at our 20 week ultrasound this Tuesday!

Suprise! It's a...

Now that we've told our families, we've decided to make it public that we already found out the gender of our baby! Due to a scheduling conflict with our 20 week ultrasound and Jon's calculus final, Jon will not be able to attend and he really wanted to be there when we found out the gender of our baby. So, we decided to find out early- 5 weeks early! Yep, we could tell at 15 weeks that we are definitely having a baby... BOY!!! It's so much fun knowing the gender because he just feels so much more real now. Also, we've decided on a name- the only boy name we both really loved- Aaron. We still aren't set on a middle name, but we've got a while to decide.

At the beginning of the pregnancy Jon and I both thought it was a girl, mainly because a lot of people we know are having girls this coming year. After our twelve week ultrasound though, we both started thinking it might be a boy. We were happy to have either a boy or girl, but now that we know it's a boy we love the idea and love him! We're also excited because he will have a boy cousin on both sides of the family only 10 months older and a girl cousin on the McLaughlin side only 2 months older. For anyone who is interested, the ultrasound video is posted on this blog. It was the easiest way for us to show our out of state family. It's 8 minutes long and the first two minutes are just the doctor finding out the gender, but I loved when it finally came to showing his darling profile, arms, legs, fingers and so on. The tech even showed us a couple of minutes in 4D just for fun! As another update, I've finally started feeling him move. It's so much fun and such an exciting feeling. The first time I felt him for sure was after I drank a cup of hot cocoa! Here are a few pictures of our precious baby boy. My twenty week ultrasound is on the 15th of this month, so I get to see him again pretty soon.

I loved how we could see his little heart beating. He moved a lot during the ultrasound!

He is sooo cute!

A little hand reaching up.

At this early stage in pregnancy the babies still look really skinny in 4D, but it was fun to see him anyway because in the movie we could see his legs, feet, arms, hands and you can even see some of his fingers in this picture.

Jace

I'm currently studying in one of the labs at BYU and my phone just rang. It said the caller was my sister in law, Jeannie. I answered and said, "Hello" and heard this cute little voice say, "Hey, Aunt Aubrey! Um, I still have your train at my house." Then in the back ground I heard Jeannie say, "Jace, did you just call someone?" I got a good laugh out of this because Jace, my three-year-old nephew, must have just been pushing random buttons and called the last person on Jeannie's call list. He had no idea who he was calling, but somehow from "Hello" he figured out that it was me. I just thought it was hilarious and cute that he recognized my voice AND was able to think quickly enough of something relevant to tell me. Anyway, just a funny moment I had to share. I love that kid!

Thanksgiving Week

We spent Thanksgiving week with Jon's family this year and had such a wonderful time! Jason, Tae and their two boys, Kenshi and Yuushi, drove from Portland to Utah to spend some time with us. We all stayed at Aunt Carrie's house. It was fun to see Jon, Jared and Jason together. They had fun beating each other up, arm wrestling, playing Nintendo and doing other guy stuff like talking about electronics. The girls- myself, Jeannie and Tae- had fun shopping, doing crafts, talking and playing with the babies. We also did a lot with everyone together such as playing games, eating delicious meals and going to Temple Square. We had a really great week and were sad to see it end. I am thankful for families and holidays when we can all be together!

Baby Yuushi is such a joy! He is such a smiley, happy baby and he loves talking and cooing.
Kenshi was tired out from late nights and playing hard. He was fast asleep during our entire Thanksgiving Day walk.

Aunt Carrie and Jeannie getting ready for our "Turkey Trot". We didn't make it in time to go with the rest of the group, but we went on a nice long walk anyway.

Jace kept asking where the all of the turkeys were.

Kenshi is such a doll!

Jace settled for ducks and geese since there weren't any turkeys out.

The Gateway Mall was very festive with lights and a choir singing Christmas songs.

Jason and Kenshi at Temple Square.

Jon and I at Temple Square. I really liked the pink lights they have this year.

Tae painting her countdown blocks.

We decided that the less children each person had, the faster they finished- just less interruptions. I finished first(baby on the way), the Jeannie(Jace and a baby on the way) and then Tae(who has Kenshi and Yuushi). Luckily we were all able to finish them and they turned out great!

The brothers had fun playing Smash Brothers.

My completed countdown blocks.