The Doctor Was Wrong...

I had my ultrasound on Friday and it was very surprising. After my last visit I was feeling a little confident it was a boy. My doctor did warn me that his machine wasn't as nice and he may be seeing the cord, but we just couldn't get a good shot. So obviously I was totally surprised when the ultrasound tech started to check and I could tell it was a GIRL before she even said it. To be perfectly honest Dustin and I didn't really care what we were having, we were mostly concerned that baby would be healthy. It was so fun getting to see our little girl and Dustin said he was happy because the surprise made the whole appointment much more exciting. She is a busy little girl, just like Ella was in my tummy. She was moving all over the place and she did not want us to get a good profile shot of her. The tech tried about 10 times until we could finally see. She kept burrowing her little face toward my back and making it difficult. We were able to get a video of the ultrasound which is so awesome. I have already watched it a bunch, it is just so amazing to see how developed a baby can be when we are only halfway done. We are so grateful that everything looked perfect with our little girl. We think we have the name narrowed down to 2, but we are still open to new ideas. We like to decide before the baby gets here, so I am sure we will pick something soon. The 2 names we think we might end up with are Annie or Alice. They are actually both family names, but that is not totally why we picked them, just kind of a bonus. Dustin and I each have one we like a little better, however his favorite is quickly growing on me. Obviously we like names you don't hear as much, but we want something normal and easy to spell. We already know she is always going to have to spell her last name for people. :) Anyway, feel free to offer us opinions and suggestions. I want to pick something soon, I hate not having a name to refer to the baby as.

Here is the money shot, we are 100% sure it is a girl!!

And here is her profile. I think she is still turned a little, but she still looks so cute. She had her ankles crossed the whole time and her hands up by her face.

And finally, here is me a few days ago at 20 weeks. Yay, I am halfway done!! I might have to start doing covered belly shots for the blog. I am kind of gigantic and I don't want to scare people :) It is kind of funny because she is still small and yet I am getting so big. I am nervous for how I will be at the end. I need to figure out how to do a side by side on blogger. I was looking at my 20 week picture from Ella and I was so much smaller!! It is just funny to compare the two pictures, especially since I thought I was so big last time around. All I have to say is that the body is amazing to be able to go through such a transformation, and then to go back to normal (hopefully).

Belly and Birthday

I have been meaning to do a post about Ella's birthday party for about a week, but once again time has gotten away from me and life has been busy. To start things off, here are my most recent belly shots. I missed about 5 weeks of pictures and then got 2 in a row. My belly has really been growing so you might even be able to tell the difference between the pictures. I sure feel different from last week.

Here is me at 17 weeks.

And this is me today at just over 18 weeks. I am just starting to feel uncomfortable and sleep is getting harder, but it is all worth it.

In other baby news at my appointment last week my doctor did a quick ultrasound to check the gender. The baby was in a really tough position and so he was having a hard time getting a look. At first he said girl, but then we got some better looks and he thought boy for sure. He gave us an 85% chance that it was a boy. It really looked like a boy to me, but we will find out for sure at my real ultrasound appointment on the 19th. I am so excited to know so that I can start getting the nursery ready. Also, I think I have been feeling the baby for the last week and half or so, but I don't know for sure. They say it is easier to notice the kicks the second time around but it is still a little hard for me. In the last few days it has been more pronounced and I am more confident that I am actually feeling the baby and not my food digesting.

On to the party...

A week ago my sister and I threw an Elmo birthday party for Ella, Riley, and her husband Loran. He was a good sport to share the party with two 2 year olds. I decided that I would attempt to make them a cake. This was the first time I have ever done this, but it actually went better than I thought and was kind of fun. Dustin made the frosting and helped to get the colors just right.

This picture was at the beginning of the process.

And here I am with the finished product. I was going to try and put the names on, but I ran out of room and I had a small amount of confidence of me making the names legible with frosting. We decided to go with the ages.

This is a group shot of some of my family. Notice my brother on the far left being his usual self :) As you can see Dustin and I had some fun decorating our house. We were quite proud of what we did with our fan. :) Although now that I see it in a picture, I think it looked a little more impressive in person.
We played pin the tail on the donkey which was hysterical. To my family, we have a video of each person playing, so let me know if you want them. Here is my nephew, Josh playing. He was the big winner and beat 11 of us.

Ella loves her cousins, but she really likes Josh. She constantly wanted to be in his lap or doing just what he did.

Loran and Amy put together a pass the parcel game. This is my mom opening one of the layers.

Amy helping Riley open a present.

Ella opening presents. She still does not totally get it and gets pretty excited about the tissue paper.

Loran opening his gifts. I think we all gave him ITunes gift cards.

The two birthday boys and the birthday girl blowing out the candles.

Cute Riley enjoying his cake and ice cream.

It was a really fun party, and to all my family, I hope you had fun!!

I still can't believe that I have a 2 year old. Ella had her 2 year check up this last week and here are her stats:

24.0 pounds (16th percentile)

34 3/4 inches tall (76 percentile)

The doctor said she was great in every way and we agree. I need to do a post about everything she is into these days and all the talking she is doing. I will just tell you for now that her latest interests are the color pink and watching Aladdin. :)

This picture is from today. Dustin got up with Ella and let me sleep in a little bit. I came out to find them like this watching their favorite show, Curious George. This picture makes me a little sad because I am husbandless (if that is a word) for the next 12 days. He left for a work trip to Costa Rica today and I already miss him. I am really pathetic and we have only been apart for a couple nights over our nearly 5 1/2 years of marriage. I am excited for him and know he will have fun, but I am going to miss him and I know Ella will be sad once she figures it out. And I am really glad we have an alarm system to make me feel safe.

Ella's Big Girl Room

For the past month we have been preparing for and finishing Ella's new room. I wish I had taken some before pictures. This used to be our office with a huge desk and tons of bookcases. It has been a little hard losing our office, but we sold our old furniture, found new places for supplies, and bought a smaller desk that is now in our bedroom. We have been doing some major cleaning out and downsizing. Our bedroom is a little crowded, but Dustin has to have a place to work since he often works from home. We are really happy with how her room turned out and we love spending time in it. Ella loves it too and she is already sleeping in her bed too. We thought the transition would be really hard, but it went super smooth. During the day for her naps I still have to lay down on the floor for a couple minutes. For some reason if she sees me lay down she will lay down and go to sleep. I think it is harder for her to go to sleep since it is light and she is tempted by her toys. The great thing is that she never tries to get out of her bed. She looks so adorable in her bed since she is so tiny in it. We now only go in her old nursery to change her diaper on the changing table. I am excited to find out what we are having so I can get going on that room. I am a little bit of a planner and an organizer, can you tell? :) Anyway, enjoy the pictures.Please ignore that one of knobs on her dresser is missing. There was a flaw on it so the furniture store is getting us a new one.
Ella insisted on sitting in her chair while I was taking pictures, and then she kicked me out. I was really hurrying because of it so I apologize that they are not the best pictures.

We just got the nightstand on Saturday and I feel like it needs something more done with it besides the lamp, but I haven't figured it out yet. For now, Ella just loves the turn the lamp off and on about 50 times a day. This is the lamp from her nursery and it is a little small in the room. I might need to make some changes. Opinions are welcome :)

Recent Pictures

I called this post recent pictures, but I think some of them date back to December. Anyway, enjoy!

Here is Ella in our old office that is now her room. You can see we were mid transition with all the chaos behind her. For those of you who know Dustin well, you understand why this photo makes him so proud. :) Like Daddy, like daughter.
Ella loves her blankets. She has 3 that she loves and she enjoys snuggling with them and she always has to sleep with one. This was just us watching tv one night and Ella wanted to be extra cozy. Please ignore me looking like a total dork in the background.

We have a routine that we do with Ella every night before bed which includes reading. I don't remember this night, but Dustin took a picture of us enjoying one of her Ella books.

Ella loves her cousin Riley and she asks about him everyday. She was lucky to have him come play with her one day. They were having fun playing piano together.

Every time I try to take a picture of Ella she comes right up to the camera. Usually the outcome is not so good, but this one was actually kind of cute.

What, don't you cook with no pants on? :)

Ella is very attached to her Daddy these days. He has been so crazy busy with work and side projects that she hasn't seen him tons lately. But when they do play together they have a blast. I love this picture because she just has the look of pure joy on her face. He is such an amazing Dad!

Here is just more of their piggy back ride.

Dustin's parents were in town a few weeks ago and Ella loved getting to spend time with them. Grandpa Rob was playing Old McDonald on the guitar so Ella could sing with him, and Ella was also stealing most of Grandma Jana's dessert. Thanks guys!!

Our Big News

As many people are now discovering from the ticker on my blog I am pregnant!!! We could not be more excited and we can't wait to meet the new member of our family. I hope that no one feels bad that they are just finding out, but we kept the news to ourselves for awhile. As some people know I had two miscarriages before Ella and actually one before I got pregnant this time. Because of that, we get nervous telling anyone other than family until we know we are out of the woods. Getting pregnant at all has always been a little bit of a rocky road for us so we feel especially grateful when we get one that sticks :)
We found out that I was pregnant right after Thanksgiving but I was instantly nervous due to my history. Fortunately my doctors monitor me very closely, gives me helpful drugs to take, and run many tests which did put me at ease. Also, I was pretty sick so that was a constant reassurance that everything was going okay. I am so happy to be mostly done with the whole morning sickness thing. The week before Christmas we had our first ultrasound to check for a heartbeat and when we saw it we were so relieved. We wanted to tell Dustin's parents in person and we wanted to tell them when it looked very optimistic. We wrapped up the ultrasound photo for one of their gifts and it was so much fun. Dustin's grandma has video of them finding out that I will have to post at some point.
I decided that I wasn't going to blog about being pregnant until I was out of the first trimester, but then I had an appointment at 14 weeks and I just decided to wait for that. That was last week but I am just getting around to it because Ella got really sick that day and is just barely getting better. I can do another post about that later. Anyway, a lot of people who see me often figured out I was pregnant awhile ago because my belly is quite obvious. I thought I showed early with Ella, but it is even more pronounced this time around. I must admit, getting the big belly is slightly less exciting the second time around. I think it is because I am now remembering what it feels like to be so big. It is all worth it though and the more I grow I know the little baby is growing and is healthy.
Alright, now that I have written a novel I will get to the details that most of you actually care about. My due date is August 7th, so Ella will be a month shy of 2 1/2 if I go full term. We are really happy about that spacing. I am a little nervous about being gigantic when it is really hot, but I am sure I will survive. My big ultrasound isn't until March 19, but since I am so anxious to know, but doctor said he would try to sneak in a quick ultrasound to take a peek at my next visit on March 1!! So hopefully I will have some fun news to share that day. I really think it is another girl, but we will see. To be perfectly honest we don't really care what we have. We have reasons for wanting both so I will be excited either way. We have already gotten started on Ella's big girl room and I will do a post of that when I finish with it. For those that know me I am a major planner so I am dying to get the nursery all organized. Thanks if you actually made it to the end of all this. Dustin and I are thrilled and we love having so many great people to share it with.


Here is a picture of me around 12 weeks I think. I am already quite a bit bigger which is a little shocking to me. I apologize if I bother anyone with my bare belly. I am already feeling a little guilty because we took weekly pictures with Ella, and so far this is the only one we took. And don't worry, when I get gigantic I will post pictures with a covered belly :)

St. George Christmas

We headed down to St. George to spend the actual Christmas holiday with Dustin's family. It was a very memorable trip because one of our presents to Dustin's parents was to share our big news. We had kept it to ourselves for a month so we were so excited to tell them. (I will do a separate post all about "the news'). It was such a fun and relaxing trip and Ella quickly became attached to her Grandma Jana.

This was one of Ella's favorite gifts from her Grandma and Grandpa. She instantly knew what it was and put her baby down to go "night night."

We went to a great park near their house. Ella had a blast with her cousin, Hannah. As of now Hannah is Ella's only girl cousin so it is fun to see them spend time together.

Dustin's parents treated us all to an amazing dinner at their clubhouse. This is a rare picture of just Dustin and me before the meal.

Ella spent the entire two hour meal in her Grandma's lap. I have to admit it was so nice to eat my meal in peace. Ella had a blast with her and refused to sit anywhere else. Thanks again Jana!!

Here is Rob and Jana with their grandkids.

The whole time we were down there Ella hardly napped because there was too much excitement going on. But one afternoon after church Ella finally crashed during lunch. Here is where she first fell asleep...

...and eventually it turned into this.

We always love to go swimming when we go down to visit, but usually Ella hates it. We were excited because this time she loved it. Of course she had to be with her Grandma the entire time.

Thanks again to Rob and Jana for such fun visit. We can't wait to come again!

Jensen Christmas

I debated even doing Christmas posts since I am so late, but for documentation purposes here goes. This year we had a couple different Christmases over a few weeks. The first one was with my side of the family. Here is a shot of most of us, I think only a couple people aren't in it. Now we have 13 people and this was David's first Chrismas. This Christmas was a lot of fun since there were six kids, that always makes it more exciting.


Here is Ella in her apron that my sister Amy made for her. She loves anything to go along with her kitchen.

My brother gave Ella this stroller and she absolutely loved it. She takes her babies for walks around the house all the time.