How we told our family we were FINALLY expecting!

I was 8 weeks pregnant when we decided to tell my family.  Before we get started you may all be wondering why we told our family so early? Or that we are crazy for telling everyone so early in case there was the chance of losing it.  While yes most people wait, we decided that it was our decision to tell our family early.  We have been trying for 4 1/2 years and have had some struggles so when we were finally reading a positive test I knew that I couldn't hold it in anymore and I wanted to tell my family so I could talk to people about the pregnancy and the symptoms I was feeling and if they were normal symptoms or not.  It eased my anxiety self by just telling people so I could converse since it was my first one and I am terrified of loosing it.  So now that we have that out of the way here is out we told Derek's family.

We wanted to get everyone together but didn't want it to seem out of the normal because then they might be thinking that we had some big news.  Derek's parents live in a town home community and have a community pool, it was almost the end of the season right before they closed it for the winter so we decided to say that we wanted to do an end of season pool party before it closes.  They all agreed except for two of Derek's sisters, one had a sick family, and the other lives in Las Vegas.  We racked our brains of how to tell everyone in a cool way that had to do with the pool.  We were browsing at our local store and found the best idea ever!  We all showed up at Derek's parents, and his mom being the antsy one that we love wanted to get over to the pool before we had a chance to share it the way we wanted so we changed our plans.  We all went to the pool and waited for Derek's brothers family to show up.  Once they showed up Derek went and got our secret weapon.  We had found a cute little blow up floaty that Derek pulled out of the box and handed it to his mom, on the side of the pool, and said "Mom, can you blow this up for us?"  She then said, "I can try." Derek that said, "well you don't have to do it right away you have at least 9 months to do it and we will need it done before June 2015."  His mom just screamed and was so excited along with the rest of his family.  It was so exciting.  We took a picture of us with the floaty so that we could send it to the rest of his family that wasn't able to be there. 

When we sent it do Derek's family that wasn't able to be there we said, "we just wanted to let you know that there will be a new captain taking over this ship in June-ish 2015."

For my family we wanted to do it a different way since we couldn't show up in our swimsuits and a floaty.  We thought forever and ever about what to do.  We were hoping that we would have found out a couple weeks earlier when we did family pictures because then we were going to hold up a sign as the photographer took the picture and then have the photographer show them the picture.  But we didn't know so on to plan B.  For this one it was a pretty simple idea but a cute idea.  We purchased plain white shirts and wrote with a sharpie on them.  Then when we showed up at my parents house we had sweatshirts on and started talking about life and told them about us moving.  We said that "we decided that we kind of needed a different house that was bigger because we were going to be filling it a little bit sooner than we thought."  At that moment we unzipped our sweatshirts and unveiled our t-shirts. And here is what they said:

To say my family was shocked is an understatement! My mom did not believe that we were serious, but once they finally realized that we were serious they were super excited!!

It's About Time!!

**Disclaimer: Thanks to a great friend (Tori Curtis) I have decided to come back to blogging to document the fun adventures that are ahead of us!**

Derek and I are so excited to announce that we are PREGNANT!! We are so excited and couldn't be more grateful for this opportunity to be pregnant.  I wanted to take a minute to share how we found out we were pregnant.

We have been trying to get pregnant for 5 years now.  Well I guess we can't really say trying trying we just haven't been preventing it for 5 years and really trying for 3 years.  Yeah I know a little confusing.  However, we have been wanting kids for so long and had to wait patiently for our chance.  We recently found a really awesome doctor that we just love that helped us to get pregnant.  He had us on a very specific regimen that I won't get into but let's just say that it must have worked.  Plus the timing must be right for us now.

So on to the story.  I had been feeling super sick at the end of August and I wasn't sure what it was.  I didn't automatically think that it was pregnancy because it felt more like a stomach bug than pregnancy.  However, me being who I am and so ready to be pregnant was still hopeful that we were so I took a pregnancy test about 4 days before my next cycle.  I took the test and waited and waited for the results to come still hating these pregnancy test because I swear they don't work correctly, expect for this time was different and there was hope.  The test finally showed up and there was a really faint line.  I was excited because I had NEVER seen a line there before and I knew this time was different.  However, my husband wasn't so sure as I was.  He told me to take another test because he wasn't sure that was a real line.  So I took another test that afternoon and unfortunately the test was negative and all of that hope was immediately gone and I was super discouraged.  I didn't immediately remove that positive test out of my head but just put it on the back burner.  That weekend our friends had come over to our house to hang out and I was talking to my two girlfriends and told them the story and they told me not to loose hope yet.  My one friend that is a nurse told me that your hormone level that the pregnancy test reads is always stronger in the morning than it is in the afternoon so I just could be pregnant but not far enough along yet that the hormone shows up all the time.  She told me to take another pregnancy test in a couple of days.  So waited patiently but still hopeful that I could be pregnant.  So those next few days went by so slowly and Tuesday (two days after my cycle was supposed to start) finally came around.  Unfortunately, I had to wake up and go to the bathroom and 3:00am and decided what better time than then to take a test.  So I did and boy I have never seen as bright of a line that I did that day.  The time had finally come all of our patience and waiting it out was finally here.  We are PREGNANT!!  I wasn't sure if I wanted to wake Derek up that early because we had to work the next day but I guess I didn't come into bed quietly enough because he woke up.  He said, "are you doing okay?"  "Uh-huh!" I said.  "Did you take a test?" Derek asked.  "Uh-huh!" I exclaimed trying to hide the excitement.  Derek then said, "AND...?"  All I could say at that moment was "uh-huh!!!"  He was shocked! Half deliriousness from it being 3:00 in the morning and half because he couldn't believe that we were actually pregnant.  Needless to say we didn't sleep the rest of the night.

One of the first pregnancy tests with the first positive sign!

We are so extremely grateful for this blessing to come into our lives and couldn't be more excited.  Also, a little unsure this is actually happening for us now.  I am not going to lie I have taken a few pregnancy tests since then just to make sure I was still pregnant.

Since this is so long already I will tell you tomorrow about how we told our families.

Surprise Date Night!!!

Last night Derek surprised me with an amazing date night. I got home and he jumped out of no where and put my scarf on my head and told me to close my eyes and not to peek. This didn't work out too well because the scarf had holes in it and I could see so he grabbed a towel from his back seat and but that over my head. 

He drove around and around taking roads left and right and confusing me so I wouldn't know where we were going.  With all of his stopping and going and turning I got really car sick, I almost puked.  We finally arrived at our stop.  I had no clue where we were or what we were doing, other than we were going to eat first.  With all the bumps we were hitting and slow moving and stopping and going I thought we were in the mountain some where.  Little did I know we were in downtown Layton.  Derek came to the car to let me out but still told me to close my eyes, so I kept my eyes closed the whole way.  I was proud of myself for not peeking it is so hard for me to not know where we were going.  I suddenly heard country music playing and I was trying to figure out what restaurant we were at.  I didn't know until we sat down and he let me open my eyes.  We had arrived at Texas Roadhouse.  I was so excited!! I looked on the table and there were these beautiful flowers on the table.  I was very impressed.  Underneath the flowers were two tickets the a movie, The Host.

My handsomly, awesome, amazing husband!!! And the beautiful flowers.

Us at the movie The Host.  It was actually pretty good, a little long but good.

It was so nice to have a night to just Derek and I.  I love my husband so much, he is so amazing to me and treats me so great.  Thanks Derek for the wonderful night!

Family Pictures

A couple weeks ago we got our family pictures taken my Malorie Walker Photography.  She did a great job and we absolutely love them.  Enjoy!

 Patches

 Little Miss

 Rudi

ALOHA!!!

YAY!! We are finally on our way to Hawaii!! We are so excited.  We are sitting here waiting at the airport.  We got here a little bit early which is okay to make sure that we made it to the flight one time.  I don't want to miss this flight.  The flight today is 7 hours.  That is a really long flight but I think it will be okay.  When we get there to Hawaii we are going to go pick up a car then head to our hotel.  We are staying at the Marriot in Waikiki.  I am so excited just to land and see the beautiful Hawaii that everyone talks about.  I just wanted to say thank you to Derek for letting us go on this wonderful vacation.  I am so excited to spend some quality time with him.  Keep checking back for updates on what fun adventures we go on!!!

Update!

I wanted to take a couple of minuets to post a little update on our lives.  Derek is still going to school this is his second to last semester in school.  We are so excited to have him almost be done.  We were talking about moving to California when he was done with school, however, we thought more and more about it and decided that it would be best if we stayed here in Utah.  Hopefully something great is in our future here.  We are hoping to start a family soon so hopefully we will have some exciting news, however it is not yet so don't get too excited.

Derek and I are leaving for Hawaii on Friday for our anniversary!! We are so excited to head to Hawaii and enjoy some warmth and alone time ;).  We will be gone for 8 days and we are doing a whole ton of fun stuff!  I will post pictures and stories later.  We have been saving our money for 3 years to be able to go on this trip and we are going to be living like King's and Queens.  We are first heading to the island of Oahu and then heading to Maui where we will be celebrating our 3 year anniversary.

Well those are the main updates right now.  We are just loving our life and having so much fun with friends and family.  We have been spending a lot of time with friends and we are absolutely loving it!  We have been able to do some fun things with some really great people!  We hope to have some more fun times ahead!

Wonderful Weekend!

We had such a wonderful weekend, full of good times and good friends!  On Thursday we went to a private screening of Breaking Dawn Part 1, and it was very good! There were a couple of parts I didn't like but for the most part it was really good.  Then on Friday we went to the gym and did a great workout and then hung out together.  Saturday was my favorite day of the weekend! The first part of the day we went to Cody and Amber's and took their family pictures, they turned out so great and I just love their family.  Then we went straight home and I had to change to head to the gym with Jerkya Tolman for our workout session.  We had a great session and a great workout! It felt great to have a good workout, although my body is not loving it.  I am so sore today I can't believe it.  Derek had his first workout session in a long time, we think he actually pulled a muscle in his back so he is in a little bit of pain.  Then we ran home and started cooking Thanksgiving dinner because we were having a bunch of friends over for Thanksgiving dinner.  We have such great friends and it was so great to spend quality time with friends that are basically family.  We slept over at Derek's parents house Saturday night because Derek had the opportunity to go learn how the Tabernacle choir does their broadcasts from behind the scenes. He really enjoyed it and learned so much and thought it was a great experience.  I am grateful that he was able to do that.  I wish I could have gone.

I am so excited for this week!! Not only do I only work two days this week Monday and Tuesday but we are heading to California with my family for the Thanksgiving Holiday.  I will post lots of pictures and tell you all about it.  I am not sure how much fun it will be because we are going for my brother Matt's soccer tournament but we will be with family and I am just excited to get away with my husband for a little bit!