Tender Moment

Our faith and family is so important to us.  We strive to teach Matthew the very basics about church and Jesus.  He learns in his nursery class on Sundays.  And while the lessons are simple and their attention span is less than 5 minutes, they really are absorbing everything.  It amazes me some of the things he will recall.  And it makes me super happy when he talks about Jesus (or any other church principle we try to teach). 

I was driving in the car with Matthew last week and had the following conversation with him out of the blue.

Matthew:  Mommy, the Holy Ghost is in our hearts.

Me:  yes, that's where we feel the Holy Ghost.

Matthew:  Mommy, who is Jesus?

Me:  Jesus is someone that we feel in our hearts too.  He hears our prayers and helps comfort us when we are sad.  Like when mommy was praying for you to come to our family, I was sad and Jesus made me feel better and He answered my prayers because you came!

Matthew: Yeah, I took a long time to come.

In that moment, I felt like he knew way more than I will ever understand about the premortal existence.  This boy of mine, he truly is heaven sent.  I adore him so much and hope that he knows that.  Even after baby sister joins our family, I want him to know that he will always be  my baby!  He makes me live each day and want to be a better mother!

17 Weeks

I am 17 weeks, 5 days.

This is my first belly shot with this pregnancy. Last pregnancy we took pictures every week.  This time around, we're more relaxed about it.  Maybe as we get further we'll do more belly pics. 

I seriously look like I'm 6 months pregnant versus 4 months pregnant!

I've gained about 5 lbs (thank you Gestational Diabetes).

I had a dr appt yesterday with the Perinatologist.  Baby is still a GIRL! Everything looks good so far.  My next appt will be at 20 weeks and that's when they will do a more detailed scan/measurements.

I will have to start Progesterone at about 20 weeks to prevent preterm labor.  I'll have to decide if I want to do the shot or the inserts.  The dr said the shot may hurt since it's oil based.  Great.

I've been feeling fine.  Sometimes I feel a lot of pressure in my lower belly so then I just have to lay down and relax a little.  I haven't felt baby move yet so I'm looking forward to that.

Just taking it one day at a time.  I continue to pray that baby keeps growing!

Weekend Feasting!

I was able to take off a little early on Friday and picked up Matthew and headed to 'town'. We went shopping a little because momma needed a new coral color necklace. 

We had dinner at P.F. Chang's because I was really craving the lettuce wraps.  Matthew was loving the honey chicken.  He ate so much!

I had promised him we would get cupcakes if he was good. He picked out red velvet and I got chocolate peanut butter for Steve and myself.  It was SO yummy!

On Saturday we had a housewarming party to go to for my cousin.  The food was so yummy.  I only took a picture of the papaya salad.  I hadn't had it in SO long!  But I know papaya is not good for you when you are (high risk) pregnant so I only partook a little bit of it.  Everything else was still yummy.  I love going to family gatherings because I know there will be plenty of delish food!  (Steve may not think so, but that's because he doesn't like asian food).

I love this boy so much.  He fills my heart with so much love!

I'm so glad Sunday is a day of rest.  We sure do need it!

And then it's back to work on Monday :(

Outtakes

Outtakes - is that one word or two?  It looks weird as one word...Out takes....that 'looks' better!

Anyways.....

I wanted to share some of the outtakes from our gender reveal photoshoot.  As I mention earlier, it took a lot of bribing to get Matthew to finally stand on his own withe the chalk board sign (special thanks to my hubby for making me the chalkboard)!

Here he is after opening his DVD.  He wanted nothing to do with the sign after he had his hands on that DVD. 

At one point, we both had to sit down with him, but he still wasn't feeling it.



Now, on to the big reveal part.  We were setting up and getting ready to open the box when a BIG gust of wind blew thru and the box went flying!  I thought for sure the box would just open up and the balloons would just fly out!  My photographer friend and my niece Abbey took off running after the box.  They caught up with it and luckily everything was still in tact!

When we finally got around to actually opening the box, we were expecting the balloons to just float out of the box.  You know, that's what helium balloons are suppose to do, right?

Well, that was NOT the case!

We had to reach into the box and give them kind of a jump start.  It all happened so quickly and was just hilarious!  I think the balloons were blown up too big and so they were 'stuck' together in the box. 

We managed to get them all out of the box and they all flew away (kind of one by one).

It was a one time kind of photoshoot so we couldn't have a 'do over'. 

This is where the beauty of photoshop comes in! ha!

The picture below is one of the very few good ones that the photographer captured with the balloons.  I told her to just photoshop more balloons in the picture so it would actually look like we had more than two balloons!

Here's the BEFORE picture.

And the AFTER (photoshop)

It just goes to prove that sometimes, photoshoots don't always turn out the way you plan them, especially when you are dealing with unpredictuable subjects like toddlers and helium balloons.

But we had SO much fun and will always have the memories.  Matthew still talks about opening the box and pink ballons coming out.  We still laugh about how funny it was to watch the photographer run after the box!   It was a special day for our little family and no about of photoshopping can take that away! 



Boy or Girl???

Our gender reveal shoot was this past Saturday. 

It was super windy so Matthew was not really in the mood.  It took some bribing (a DVD present and a promised trip to Chuck E Cheese afterward) to finally get him to hold the sign!

This was our FB announcement. 

 He got a Team Umi Zoomi DVD for being a good little model! Ha!

Then it was on to the big reveal!

It's a GIRL!!

We are SO excited to add some pink to our family! 

I won't go crazy and start buying any girl things until I can get confirmation again in the next few dr visits to confirm and reconfirm it's a girl! But the ultrasound tech did say she was pretty sure!

I guess I should start learning how to make hair bows versus bow ties!

I am feeling so blessed!

15 Weeks - Gender Sneak Peak ?

Baby profile

Baby arm!

I had my 15 week check up yesterday with the Perinatologist.

They didn't take any measurements of baby.  Just a quick scan and then they checked my cervix. 

Apparently I have Placenta Previa (the placenta lies low in the uterus, very close to the cervix). I have to go back again every two weeks until about 24 weeks.  Hopefully by then the placenta would have moved up, away from the cervix. 

The ultrasound tech was able to determine the gender of baby.  I had her write it down and seal it in an envelope so we could open it with Matthew.  We are planning a reveal photoshoot this Saturday so we will all find out together as a family!  I'm anxious to find out and it's taking a lot of will power not to sneak a peak at the envelope!

Stay tune and I will update next week!

Picking out baby names with a Toddler

Found this little selfie picture on my phone.

That little face cracks me up. He's always taking a million pictures on my phone.

Matthew really wants a baby sister.

And there are days when you ask him if he wants a baby sister or brother and he'll say, 'mommy, I don't want nothing'.

We don't know the gender of the baby yet (hopefully will find out this week) but we have agreed on one girl name and can't decide on a boy name.

If it's a girl, we like the name Katherine (Kate for short).  Matthew is already excited for his baby Kate!

Boys name are harder to agree on.  I like Luke and so does Matthew.  Steve's not a fan. I also like Mark, but he doesn't like that name either!  So here's a conversation we had the other night with Matthew as we were discussing names:

STEVE:  Matthew, what about the name Thomas?

MATTHEW: No, that's a train!

STEVE:  What about the name Peter?

MATTHEW: No, daddy, that's a rabbit!

We laughed so hard when he said that! 

I guess we can't pick out any names that are T.V. characters he knows. 

He cracks us up!

I am excited to find out this week!

Check up!

Time for your check up, time for your check up!

(think Doc McStuffins intro song).

My little guy had his 3 yr check up last week.  He was all ready for it (thanks to watching Doc McStuffins). 

He was so good for the dr! 

What he didn't expect was getting his finger pricked AND getting a shot.

He didn't really cry, but more of a shocked looked.  And then all was good again after he got his little popsicle!

His stats:

Weight - 29.8 LBS (25the percentile)

Height - 37" (40th percentile)

Tuesday Tid Bits

What happens when you have captured lots of moments on your iPhone, but forgot to blog about it??  Well, you stuff it all into one blog post!  Shall we?

A few weeks ago we went to the Circus that passed thru town.  It was a very small circus and was only here for one night.  Matthew absolutely loved it!  He got to ride a camel and was not even scared.  I was more afraid for him! 

When asked what his favorite part of the circus was, his reply, "the girls!" (the performers).  And he has asked several times to go back to the 'small circus'.

Matthew loves to help daddy cook!  They made dinner rolls the other day.  It's fun to have him in the kitchen trying to 'help' us.  Just last night we made brownies!!

This boy loves his corn (and carrots). 

Rocking out with his guitar.  I tried to tell him that's not the correct way to hold a guitar, but he wouldn't have it any other way.  Maybe it's time to get him a violin since he already has the correct hold down!

Last but not least, I made an extra St. Patricks Day bowtie to giveaway!

All you have to do is 'like' the picture on my Instagram (you can find me at HNWHITCOMB).

Giveaway ends Thursday, March 6th.  Details on IG. 

That's it for this edition of Tuesday Tid bits!!