A baby.....

So here's the story for those who want to know....

About 3 weeks ago, I was having lunch with my cousin Laura and told her how I felt like my stomach was growing, if you've never been pregnant, you won't know what I'm talking about, and you'll probably think I'm nuts like my husband.  I said, I'm almost positive I'm pregnant, we were getting ready to go to Lagoon, and I decided to wait and take a pregnancy test.  Thinking it's nothing, there's NO way I am pregnant.  I'm not ready for a baby (thankfully you have 9 months to prepare).

A few days later, I took a test, it was positive....so of course, I took another one, it was positive too.  I screamed, called Tom, and he was taken about, why was I crying. My hope was that Elliana would at least be sleeping consistently through the night.  Tom is working with an OBGYN right now for his rotations, they take our insurance so we scheduled an appointment.  Sure enough, there's a baby.  I'm 8 weeks, so still really early, and the only reason I'm sharing so early is because a few people have had to know, because I'm SO SO SO sick!

Morning sickness, night sickness, day sickness....you name it, I have it.  I've lost 13 lbs, and just feel SICK all the time.  I have a really hard time getting up and going, and I spend a lot of time laying down.  Zofran is my new best friend, and I take it religiously every 6 hours (that's an anti-nausea medication).  It helped a LOT at first, now it just takes the edge off.  Elliana is excited kind of, but yesterday we had another Dr. appointment and I told Elliana we were going to see the baby and she responded "no thanks Mom, I don't want the baby".  At least she was polite?!?!  I think she'll be a great big sister, and I'm hoping life will get a LOT better in the next few weeks if I can stop being sick.

I've had lots of people ask if I felt like this with Elliana, and the answer is no.  I had a few sick days where I didn't feel well, but it was more towards the end.  With her I was just really tired....could sleep all the time.  This time, I'm not super tired (like more than usual), just sick.

So, there you have it.  Baby Duncan 2 is on the way.  My new due date I was informed last night by my husband is April 30.  I do plan on having a VBac and my Dr. is VERY supportive of that, which is great, because not everyone here in Utah is.

Elliana has something to say...

Elliana has something to say....watch the videos to see what it is.  We couldn't pick which video was cuter, and I can't get them to turn the right way.  I'll post the story later.

Preschool

Can't believe it, but my baby started Preschool!  My cousins wife is teaching preschool at her house in Provo and Elliana gets to go!  She LOVES Preschool and asks every morning if she can go to school.  I have a few pictures I'll share, but first a cute little story.  On her first day (which was Tuesday) they were finger painting another girl in the class named McKall was finger painting first, Elliana was freaking out.  So Laura (teacher) thinking Elli was upset it wasn't her turn said, it's okay Elliana you can go next.  Elliana freaked out more, yelling, "No, I don't want to pain, I don't want to get messy").  Sounds just like Elliana!

 Yes, she did pick out her awesome princess backpack ALL by herself!

 So excited to go to school!  Love her little hammy grin.

 Picture with Daddy right before Daddy went to the hospital for work.

 Picture with Mommy

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures of my little girl all growing up!  Hopefully later today I'll get a chance to blog about Lagoon!

Raspberry Jam

Thanks to Laura (my cousin) and Grandpa Cook (my cousins Grandpa) I made raspberry freezer jam for Tom! I only had to buy the pectin, and the jars to put it in, a cheap way to do it!  Thanks Grandpa!  Tom is in 7th heaven....he's kind of weird because he would rather eat store bought raspberry jam, than homemade strawberry jam.  I know, CRAZY!  We still have quite a bit of strawberry jam from last year, but now we'll have raspberry jam too!  I'm pretty impressed with myself for doing it....I've helped my Grandma make jam before, but never done it by myself.  It wasn't too hard, and I actually quite enjoyed myself, it makes me feel very domestic!  Now, if I can only clean up the kitchen....

Nana's House

Nana is my grandmother, my Mom's mom.  Elliana LOVES Nana, and LOVES going to Nana's house.  Last night we drove up to Nana's house (she lives in South Jordan).  Tom had a test at the U of U first thing this morning, so we decided to save him some drive time this morning.

I think it's adorable how much she loves Nana's house.  There isn't really anything to play with....but she LOVES going there.  We had KFC for dinner last night and Nana made cookies that Elliana loved, we even got to bring some home.  Nana had to go to the grocery store and took Elliana and I with her, and let Elli pick out some candies.  She woke up this morning and was SO sad because Nana was still sleeping.  It was adorable.

Here's a cute new picture from Nana's house.  Her hair is a mess, so don't look...but she's pretty adorable!

After we left Nana's, we went to the South Towne Mall and let Elliana ride the carousel, which she of course LOVED.  It was so cute to see her as she saw the Merry Go Round from the car window, she started shaking she was SO excited!

Our New Home

I'll lead you through a picture story of our house!  Hope you can all come visit soon!

 After trying to do this many times, I lost one of the pictures...Anyways, our front door, you walk down the stairs you see and enter a hallway, to the left (where we're going with the next picture) you find the living room and kitchen.  To the right, you find the bedrooms, laundry and bathroom.

 Our family room!  It's quite spacious and we love the bright red wall!  The TV is set in front of a working fireplace; but with Elliana in the house, there will be no wood burning fires in this house!  We have a really nice dark wood floor that we LOVE!

 Another view of the living room; looking a bit towards the dining room/kitchen!

 I have to say, that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kitchen!  it is so nice, big, spacious with tons of storage space! And what you can't see is that I have a HUGE pantry.  Next to the fridge which you see on the far left, there is a back door, where we can head outside to our back yard and grill.  We also have a little storage area in the car port, where we are able to keep tools, strollers, scooters, and our freezer!

 So we went to the right from the bottom of the stairs and the first room you run into, is ours....which there is no picture of yet.  We're still getting it all put together and set up, it will come later.  It's big and we are able to have our king size bed and our dresser and a bookcase.  It's nice!  Anyways, the above picture is Elliana's room.  It's small, it fits her bed and toys, and her dresser, but it's a bit cramped!  She thinks it is the perfect size and it's right next to our room.

 If you keep heading down the hall to the left, you'll run into our 3rd bedroom.  This is just a partial view of the room, but this is where Tom spends his time studying.  In there we also have our guest room (with a queen size bed) and our exercise bike!

Just to the left of the 3rd bedroom you get to the bathroom.  It's a small bathroom, and we're sad to only have one, having lived with 2 for the past year, but it works and we LOVE the cheap rent!  Directly across the hall from the bathroom is our laundry room, nothing special, so I didn't take a picture.  Hope you enjoyed a tour of our house!

The Help

About a year and a half ago I read the book The Help.  It was one of the most amazing and inspiring books I've ever read.  The slavery issue is something that is so hard for me to comprehend having lived in such a highly populated African American population.

This book was SO well written and I believe a first novel for Kathyrn Stockett.  http://www.kathrynstockett.com/ Visit her website here if you haven't read the book.

Since Elliana is gone Tom and I decided to use some movie passes we had and go see a movie.  We, or rather I decided that I wanted to see The Help.  Tom wanted to see it too, but it wasn't his first choice of movies.

It was the GREATEST movie.  I highly recommend it.  It was one of the best movies I have seen in a very long time.  Probably since The Blind Side....but I think it was even better than that.  I laughed, I cried...I felt so much joy and such sadness.  It truly was amazing and I would go see it again in a heartbeat!  So inspiring.  I hope if you haven't read the book you will, and if you haven't seen the movie, you will.