22 Weeks and Other Stuff

Here are some belly shots of me at 22 weeks! I can't ever decide if I'm suppose to use my hands to frame the belly or not so you get pictures of both ways....

So baby girl is growing healthy and strong and is a little acrobat inside of me! Feeling life inside of me has got to be one the coolest things ever and I missed not having that after I had Ethan. I tried to explain it to Justin one time how incredible it is but I don't think words can describe it! 

I had a check up with the doc on Friday and everything looks great! I've gained 3 pounds since my last appt which puts me at a total of 8 pounds so far. This surprises me since I have NOT been good about eating very healthy! I think March is the perfect time to have a baby but end of October- January might not be the best time to be pregnant  with the all the holidays and a lack of self control from me :) I'm just kidding... I would gladly take whatever time of the year to be pregnant I can.  Anyways, so I'm still hitting the gym and feel great, I'm measuring right on track, my blood pressure is low, and it seems like life couldn't get much better! I sure hope it stays this way!

   As far as names go for this little girl, we both really like the name Ellie. We think Ellie & Ethan sound cute together but I don't think we plan on carrying on the whole "E" thing for our future children. So if we still like it in 4 months or so it will be Ellie Marie Smith. What do ya think? I would love to hear other people's opinions about it :) Marie is my middle name by the way so that's where that comes from. It's only fair since Ethan's middle name is Justin, right?!

As far as other things go, we are really busy traveling around everywhere and seems like lately we have ben home for a week, gone for a week and so on....This week we will be back in Mexico and I'm excited to see our friends down there. 

  

Ethan is SO MUCH FUN! I love this stage that he is in and boy is he a little chatter box! He amazes me everyday with how much he talks! He says the funniest things too... For example, last Sunday we were at our Stake Conference and Ethan had just about had it with being in the chapel for 2 hours so we took him out in the foyer. Of course there were other people out there with their babies as well. Justin got a bloody nose and had to run to the bathroom and Ethan decided to announce to the whole foyer a few times, "Look! Daddy go poo-poo in the potty!"  I was laughing so hard that I couldn't even correct him! Some of his newest things he says are: "Watch out!", "I say see you soon!", and "Hey friend!" to kids at the park. He talks to anyone and everyone and loves to tell anyone who will listen that "I rode an airplane. And then uh'nudder airplane. And a ubway (subway) and ohhh and then a choo choo train!" and the list goes on. I love that i can have conversations with him although he does most of the talking :) He has also found his shadow and it seems to entertain him for a good half hour or so every night in our living room. It's really funny to just sit back and watch him play make believe with his new err... friend? Just call him Peter Pan I guess.

Here is some recent pics of him....

He got some nasty rug burn on his nose from wrestling with daddy and then decided to pick the scab off during nap time one day. I came in to see him with dried blood all over face so I stuck  a bandaid on him to take away the temptation. I thought he looked pretty goofy/cute :)

We sure do love our little boy and I am so grateful that I get to be home with him and watch him and his crazy antics! He is a lot of fun and we couldn't imagine life without him. We are also very excited to meet our little girl in March and already love her so much as well! I seriously am going to post about DC and Halloween sometime too. Hopefully this week. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Surprise Date Night!

Last night Justin took me out on a date but didn't tell me that we were going to see one of my most favorite broadway plays ever....

Yep. He surprised me by taking me to see Phantom. I LOVED it! Somehow he got a steal of a deal on tickets and we had pretty much the best seats in the house. Row 9 sitting right smack dab in the middle! Last time I saw this broadway it was the first semester of my freshman year at BYU and I sat in the very last row on the first floor. I thought it was incredible then but it was nothing like being so close to see the expressions on the actors faces. I laughed, I cried, it was all together an amazing night! Oh yeah, did I mention how lucky I am to have a husband like Justin?? Pretty lucky, I know :) Thanks sweetheart for taking me out on such a fun date! Please feel free to surprise me with a date anytime! :)

Ultrasound #.... Who Knows?! I've Lost Count!

Yesterday I had my follow-up ultrasound to check on something they saw with my placenta a few weeks ago. I had to go into a more high tech ultrasound place to have the exam done and the lady spent a good 45 minutes checking out everything. Justin and I had so much fun seeing out sweet little girl again and luckily we came out of there with nothing but good news! There is some blood on my placenta but it is not causing a threat to anything as of now and isn't anything to worry about- whew! Our little girl is 14 oz and is in the 56th percentile, (I had no idea that they do percentile stuff even while they are in the womb!), so she is growing right on track! 

Here she is showing off her flexibility with her little feet right above her forehead. It's amazing that there is enough room in there to do that!

Here is her big foot.. It's inevitable that all of our children will  have big feet. Justin wears 14's and I wear 10's. 

But the coolest part was getting to see her in 3D! I have never had one of these before and it was so neat but yet so creepy at the same time!

Her head is shaped normally, I promise. Here you can see her laying her head on my placenta with her right hand holding the umbilical cord. I thought it was funny that she was using my placenta as a pillow....

And I know that these pictures can look a little funny and are not a super accurate picture of exactly what your baby will look like, but I can definitely see that this little girl will have Justin's big, beautiful lips. Who could miss those things?! Ethan has them and I always hoped that one of our girls would get them as well... they are perfect lipstick lips!

I have a doctors appt next Friday so I'll update you guys on how I'm doing then! Maybe I'll even throw in a belly shot or two :)

Mini Vacay to San Diego!

And we're finally back! Well, only for a week before we pack it up and head down to Mexico for another week of travel, but it sure is good to be home even though we have had an amazingly fun-filled past few weeks! Let me play a little catch up and post a few of the many pictures I have of our little vacation we took to San Diego a few weeks ago (the week of the 12th of October). Justin's younger siblings had fall break that week (how come we never had such a thing in Texas?!) and so we all decided to travel together and have some fun in beautiful San Diego!

We went and spent some time touring the U.S.S. Midway, which is a retired aircraft carrier that was active at the end of WWII and continued until the 1980s. This ship was huge and it was really cool to see and hear, through an audio guided tour, of how they lived on this ship. 

And here she is.. The U.S.S Midway..

Ethan was SO incredibly excited to see all the airplanes aboard this ship. They even let you sit in some of them which I'm pretty sure made our Ethan one happy little guy..

Chalene (Justin's youngest sister) standing in front of where the men would sleep. I'm not too sure how anyone could have a good night's sleep on one of those tiny cots!

 

This rope was HUGE and weighed a ton. I think it was used with the anchors somehow...

Of course Ethan could not resist the chance to pull, push and turn a ton of buttons on the radar machine

Group picture on deck...

We then headed over to check out Coronado Island which is absolutely beautiful. I loved the quaint, old looking houses there and hope that someday we will be a super rich old couple who can retire there. Ok, so probably not but I loved it anyways. We found a small little restaurant hidden behind some tourist shops called Miguel's Cocina and everyone agreed that it was the best Mexican food we have ever had! Hands down! That's saying something considering we have not only traveled all over in South America but lived in Mexico as well! They have the best chips and salsa I have ever eaten. You MUST go there!

We then made it down to the beautiful beaches of La Jolla. Justin and I came here on a little babymoon before Ethan was born and this is still one of my favorite places to go in southern Cali. 

Not only does it have beautiful beach surroundings but it also has seals!  How cool is that to have seals in California?! 

Ethan loved these little guys and was constantly trying to find a way to get past mommy and daddy to climb over the railings to see them. I'm sure he wouldn't have loved them so much if he would have succeeded :)

Of course we had to drive by and see the beautiful San Diego Temple on our way back to the hotel one evening. We have tried twice to go do a temple session there but haven't had very good luck in doing so. The first time I forgot my temple recommend. Of course, this is so me. The second time I woke up with an incredibly bad head cold with a nose that wouldnt stop running and I thought everyone that would have been sitting next to me would probably think I had the swine flu or something so I opted out while my in-laws went. Someday we will make it in.....

The next day we went to Balboa Park and went to the Interactive Science Museum that they have there. Below are Caryn & Chalene having fun paying around with one of the experiments...

Ethan didn't have the patience to wait around while mommy looked at all the cool science experiments so we quickly found the children's play area they have there. It was so much fun to play around with Ethan here. He loved making the glove blow up with air shown below...

 

and playing with the telephones, mini grocery store, mini houses, and computers. 

We only stayed 2 full days in San Diego but I feel like we did and saw a lot! On our way home we dropped Justin off at the border in Tiajuana since he was meeting some people across the border for work. He said he felt like an illegal immigrant walking across the border with his suitcase rolling behind him. I bet he was a funny sigh t to see :) Thanks Mom and Dad Smith for taking us along with you! We had a blast!

I'm going to try to post about our amazing trip to the east coast in the next few days so stay tuned!

Frank Kush 5K

Yesterday, these lovely ladies (and some husbands) and I ran the Frank Kush 5K race in Tempe, AZ.  This was my first actual "race" to do and it was a blast! All these girls are in our ward and let me tell ya, it is so nice to have people to talk to while running long distance! These girls are great motivation to get out and run! I have been running with them for the past few months (don't worry, I was running before I was pregnant so it's ok, I promise) and I am so sad that I will now most likely have to stop running with them while they go on and train for the Turkey Trot 10K in November and Half Marathon in January. Ever since I stopped playing hard core sports after high school, my knees haven't quite been up to par and pregnancy just seems to make them hurt worse so alas, running-I bid you farewell. I am now moving on to morning elliptical, cycling classes, toning and water aerobics. I will see you again in about 5 months. Please be good  and help me lose the baby weight when I return :) 

Here is our post race shot...

Lisa, Alison, Stephanie and I

Post race shot with Alison's husband, Mike and Stephanie's husband, Brett included in the pic. Cool fact: These two girls are sisters and both of them have one set (so far) of identical twins! 

We did it!

 

Thanks guys for such a fun time! I hope to do the 10K and 1/2 marathon with y'all next year!

Pictures From the Last Few Weeks

As I was looking through our most recent pictures, I realized I have a lot of cute pictures that I haven't posted from the last few weeks that aren't necessarily of anything in particular but just of normal everyday life. Most of these pictures are from our time we spent in Mexico this month. Justin had to go down for work for a couple weeks and so Ethan and I packed up and went with him. It's always fun to travel with Justin when we can. We still have our apartment fully furnished from when we lived there and so when we go down it's awesome because Ethan and I aren't stuck in a hotel room the whole day. We have parks, pools and neighbors to keep us entertained!

I know I've said it before but Ethan LOVES his daddy! When Daddy comes home from work, it is pure playtime between him and Ethan and they definitely get their rough and tumble play time in. Ethan just eats it up! Can you tell?

  

This picture below has a pretty funny story to go with it. We saw that we had ants in our apt and they were entering from a weird corner at the top of the wall in the living room. So I got out my trusty Raid and sprayed them at their entering point. I noticed that they were going behind our clock on the wall as well so I decided to move the clock and spray behind there as well. As I did so, a HUGE gecko jumped out from behind the clock and flipped and turned, and lost its nasty twitching tail in the air as it landed on the ground. I don't do so well with lizards, geckos, or any kind of amphibians at that and so I screamed and did a little dance to stand on the nearest chair to me. Justin came running out of the room thinking I had surely just been shot at or something and saw me on top of the chair begging him to kill the "disgusting thing." So long story short, I made him tear our whole living room apart trying to find and kill the gecko but then at the end I decided that I didnt want to have to see its guts and so it would be better not to kill it. As Justin very strategically got the gecko near the door to shoo him out, he ended up accidently smashing it opening the door. Shucks. But don't worry, Justin was a good husband and cleaned up the guts so I didn't have to. What a man, eh?!

This picture is of Ethan devouring some Mac and Cheese. I don't really give him Mac & Cheese all that often so whenever I do he can't get enough! He is so funny and will start out eating it calmly with his fork/spoon but after a few bites he realizes that he can't satisfy his appetite fast enough with utensils getting in the way so he drops his silverware and uses his bare hands to shovel in the Mac &Cheese as fast as he can. Seriously, he shovels it in. He knows that he cant have seconds (or thirds) without eating all of his veggies first and I have never seen him happily eat them as fast as he does. It's pretty funny.

I just noticed that Ethan is not dressed in most of these pictures. Oh well, that's pretty much everyday life for him in our house. Why dirty clothes if we don't have to, right?!

We went to this really cool restaurant in Culiacan with iguanas everywhere and these cool bunny rabbits. This definitely wouldn't fly in the states but sometimes I'm glad they don't have some sort of health code for restaurants in Mexico...Ethan sure enjoyed playing there! 

Ethan decided to stretch out his legs on a stop on our way back up to Phoenix. Isn't he a cutie?! He is such a trooper to travel everywhere with us but I guess he doesn't really know any different since he has been doing it since birth!

That's all for now. Hopefully I can get up some videos and San Diego pictures from this last week before we leave for the east coast on Monday! Thanks for all of your comments about our upcoming trip to DC/NY. They were all so helpful and we are so excited!

It's A Little......

GIRL!

 

I was right!  We are so incredibly excited that we will soon have a precious little girl in our home! They said that she is looks absolutely perfect and that she is quite the gymnast in there! It took the lady forever to get her to open up her legs and I had to do all sorts of rolling over, sitting up and such to get her to budge those legs! When she told us that we are having a little girl, I was just trying not to cry as best I could while Justin asks, " So, like...how sure are you? Like 90% sure?"  (This meaning.. "is there still any chance it could be a boy?") She told us that in her 10 years of doing ultrasounds she has never been wrong before and that she definitely doesn't think we will be her first :) Justin is so excited for a girl as well and I'm pretty sure she will have him wrapped around her pretty little finger! I have to go back for another ultrasound soon to check up on something that doesn't look right with the placenta, but the doctor assured me that it is nothing to worry about, just something they should take a closer look at. I most definitely don't mind getting to see our little girl again, that's for sure!!

    As far as how I am, I'm feeling fabulous! I have gained 5 lbs so far and am measuring right on track. I think by this time with Ethan I had gained 8lbs. My goal for this pregnancy is to keep on the same weight gain schedule that I was with Ethan and so I'm not too far behind! This makes me very happy and more willing to go out for ice cream tonight :) Oh how excited I am to learn to sew little girl dresses and make little bows, headbands, etc. and oh the possibilities on decorating a nursery! We are so grateful that Heavenly Father has entrusted us with one of his precious daughters and we can't wait to meet her!