17 1/2 Weeks!

I heard you pop out more with each pregnancy. No kidding!! Here I am with #2.

Here I was at 17-18 weeks with Luke. Quite the difference!

Am I already almost 18 weeks? Seriously? I feel like this is just whipping by. With Luke it seemed like he would never come. I enjoyed and soaked in every new thing. I read my "Your Pregnancy, week by week" book practically every day! I could tell you on the spot at any given moment exactly how far a long I was, how big he was, what new things were developing at that time, etc. I was enveloped in my pregnancy and my changing body.

This time...I have to think about it when people ask how far along I am (sometimes I just say, "I'm due June 3rd). I think I've opened up my pregnancy book twice. I don't know what changes the baby is going through (How sad! I think I'll check my book after this). I am however still loving the little nudges and kick that I feel. I cherish those moments! Each time I feel it I smile. I can't help it. I really can't think of anything more incredible than bringing a life into this world.

I can honestly tell you that I love being pregnant! I love the bump. I love the smiles you get from strangers. I love marveling in the miracle of it all. I love knowing I am apart of Heavenly Father's plan of creating life. I even love the first trimester sickness because it's a constant reminder that baby is growing. I can say that because I'm out of that stage! Ok maybe 'love' is the wrong word...I can appreciate the first trimester. How's that? I love thinking about Luke as a big brother! I was the oldest in my family and I always, always wanted to have a big protective older brother! It was meant to be for me to have a son first. I will be able to watch him in that role. I'm sure I can throw in obnoxious big brother. Come on. What older siblings don't pick on the younger ones sometimes? The younger ones get even though by ruining your stuff :)

This pregnancy may be going by fast. I may not be as on the ball as I was with #1. Please don't judge me too harshly. Come on, I'm chasing after #1 most of the time! But I still am loving each moment. I think it's ok for time to slow down a bit more though. I want to soak up as much one on one time as I can with this little monster before both our worlds are going to be changed (for the better).

Monday is the big ultrasound! I think I'm more excited this time around than I was the first. I'm excited to see who will be joining us. This will change our family dynamic. I would love another boy! I'd love for Luke to grow up with a brother next. Luke has been so much fun! I love my boy. Another boy would be wonderful! However, a girl is a new adventure (I'm not gonna lie, the thought of a girl still scares me a bit). A girl might be the sweet, delicate addition our family needs. So exciting!!!! I'll be sure to post the news on Monday.

Family Pictures

Before Owen's #4 joins the family and started popping out too much I wanted to get pictures of the three of us. My friend Kelsey is a very talented photographer and was kind enough to take some for us. She did such a great job and we love them! Here are just a few (ok a lot) of our favorites
Gotta love the boo boo face. He's a pro!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year! We had lunch with Trent's family and extended family and dinner with my family. It was so great to see family that we haven't seen in a long time and to eat lots of yummy food!

Sawyer girls. They live in California and we definitely don't get to see them enough!Joanna and Aunt Martha. Aren't they such cute sisters?

Justin and Audra have some horses at the end of their property and so we took Luke out there to look at some. I thought he'd get a kick out of them but he was actually kinda freaked out. Can you blame him though? Look how huge this black horse is!
(If You look carefully you can see the beginnings of my baby bump! Exciting!!!)


This brown horse was so sweet! He actually started licking my hand!

Justin and Audra (who hosted all of us for lunch) have and incredible house and an incredible backyard. If I was a kid I'd have so much fun playing at their house. Luke played outside on the playground with his cousins and I'm pretty sure he had fun too.

Luke and cousin Dale havin fun!

Now on to the Loomis family Thanksgiving!

For the past 5 or 6 years (right mom and dad?) my Dad has been deep frying our turkey. Oh my gosh it is so delicious and in my opinion the only way to go! This year did not disappoint. Another great turkey Dad! We all circle around they turkey and pick at the yummy crispy skin while my Dad tries to carve it! Of course a Thanksgiving turkey wouldn't be complete without all the yuuuummmmy sides that my mom made!

This is how it usually looks at my parents house. Luke in the middle and the whole family circled around him!

I'm so mad I didn't get more pictures while at my parents house! We really had a lot of fun visiting. After dinner we all went for a walk to try to make room for pie. It was a great way to top of a fabulous day!!!

Halloween

This is our one and only picture taken on Halloween! I meant to get one of just Luke in his superhero costume but it just never happened. He was too tired at the end of the night and went straight to bed. He looked adorable though! We just went trunk-or-treating at our church building. He's still too young to know what's going on. Next year should be better. I've mentioned before that I'm not a big Halloween person at all! It's just not my thing. Probably never will be. In fact I'm surprised I even dressed up (I dug out my old scrubs from my working days. I know, lots of thought went into this!). I'll make it fun for my kids but will probably never get into it. So anywho here we are on Halloween! tah-dah!

Luke's 1st Birthday

I can still vivdly remember the day Luke was born (probably because it was only a year ago!). It was the longest, best day of my life. I can remember after they brought him to me and we were alone as a family for the first time thinking, "Oh my gosh! You are mine!". I couldn't believe I was entrusted with such a precous gift. It was actually a little scary! I immidiatly felt a great responsibility for this baby which I've always tried to take seriously. I want the best for him! That feeling has never gone away. He's still my precous boy and always will be. Being a parent has certainly come with its long and ever growing list of challenges. Sure I have moments where I want to lock myself in my room for a while just to get a break. Sure I have moments where there is nothing else to do but cry in desperation for answers. But I can honestly say that I have loved every minute of being Luke's mom. Even the hard times. He's my greatest blessing!
I'm amazed at what he's learned in one year! Right now he's walking like a champ and has been for a couple of months now. He can say bye, "ba". He's learning what things mean and how to get the things he wants. He really is a little person!
His birthday was November 12th but we celebrated it on the 13th because it was a Saturday and of course we needed to have a party! I have to say that we have such wonderful friends and family who came out to support Luke. I know that he had no idea what was going on that day. In fact I'm sure it's already forgotten. I know Trent and I will always remember it though. It was probably more for us than for Luke but he sure was spoiled!

I was a great day! Happy Birthday Luke!

Here's the Birthday Boy one his actual Birthday!


Like I said he was spoiled!

Luke really didn't know what to think of his cake. He just touched it for a while till we showed him he could eat it. Even then he mostly picked at it. I think the pressure of eating in front of an audience was a little much for him! He eventually got a little more into it.



I can't believe he's 1! What a whirlwind this parenting thing is! Happy Birthday Luke :)

Recap

For posterity's sake I wanted to make sure I recap what we've been up to lately. I've been such a slacker blogger! I'm brewing the idea of trying to do a post a day all next month just to see if I can do it. I know, exciting stuff! We'll see, like I said the idea is still brewing.

First of all my Dad graduated from college this month! {he still has one more semester but he was able to walk early}. I don't think I can put into words how proud I am of my Dad! This has been a long road. He's had to juggle family, work, demanding callings {Hello Bishop!} and many other responsibilities while going to school. He's set such an example of how much he values his education. I love him so much!! Way to go Dad!!!

Grandpa with his very grumpy grandson! It was definitely nap time!

Luke got his first haircut! His hair is already grown back and he needs another one! He did how any 10-11 month old would. He squirmed like crazy and threw a couple tantrums but with Grandma Loomis's help we got through it!

Doesn't he look like he's so miserable!
There were some good times...

But it mostly went like this!
All done and so happy it's over! I don't like it...He looks too Big!!! But he's still handsome :)

Luke had a ton of fun with Dad the other day playing in this box!

What was it for you may ask...

His big boy car seat! He loves it!!! He really loves being able to see what we see. He was a big talker in the car before but now he really likes to ramble!

Ok well that was a lot of information! Hopefully that'll hold things over for a little while longer :)

Gilmore Adventure Race

I want to make sure I do a quick mention of the Gilmore Adventure Race we did back on Sept. 25th with Justin and Audra {Trent's brother and his wife}. It was much harder than I expected it to be and looking back I'm very proud of myself for finishing it! I don't know if you've made the connection or not but I was about 5 or 6 weeks pregnant at the time. I felt lightheaded a few times but other than that I felt ok. Trent did awesome! I think he could've done another 12 miles. When we first arrived in Prescott we grabbed some breakfast at Cracker Barrel {my first time eating there, it was fabulous} and headed up the mountain to sign in and register. We got our number {96} and then we waited! There were two groups of racers the long racers which was 18 miles and the group for the short race which was 12 miles. The long racers went first. Talk about feeling out of place! These guys were serious! Some of them were even sponsored. We all couldn't help but crack up at how unprofessional we all looked in our homemade iron on t-shirts! We joked that if we ever do this again our team name should be "No Intimidation" haha! Once they left we waited for our turn. We got a little pep talk and were told the rules and then had 15 minutes to get ready and look over our map.

Before the race. Don't we look great! So unsuspecting!

When the race started we had to "run" {hello altitude! I was so not prepared for that. running for me was more of a walk/slow jog} to our next stop to get all our coordinates and plot them on our map. When I say we of course I mean Trent and Justin. They did all the map work which was really nice for Audra and I. Our first 2 or 3 stops were all hiking. It was a pretty intense hike! There were no trails so we had to trudge through the wild wilderness! :)

At the very top! All downhill hiking from here:)

The rest of the race was all mountain biking. Trent, bless his heart, has tried so hard to get me into mountain biking. When we bought my mountain bike a few years ago he was more excited than I was! It's just not my thing! So needless to say I wasn't super thrilled that the next 8 to 9 miles of the race was all going to be mountain biking!

We also had a few challenges along the way that we could either do or take a 30 minute penalty if we chose not to try it. We did each one and moved on in great time. The first one was building a bridge out of domino's. The next one was throwing metal washers into a hole that was a few feet away. The last and hardest was a puzzle. Only one of us could try it {we could help from the sidelines though}. It was pretty tricky but Justin got us through!

I'm not gonna lie to you I was miserable on the mountain biking part! {I may or may not have cursed under my breath a few times}. A lot of it was uphill and that's what sucked all my energy! I don't mean to make this all sound negative but I really hated this part! Trent asked me a few times if I thought I'd ever want to do this again. I'd just glare at him and say, "Don't ask me right now because the answer is NO!" I really kinda felt like I was holding everyone back. I was usually the caboose of the group. I can honestly say though that I did my very very best! I pushed myself as hard as I could and I'm proud of the fact that I didn't give up.

Before you could cross the finish line you had to scale a 12 ft wall! Maybe it doesn't look super tall in the pictures but believe me 12 ft is tall! We had a great strategy though and all made it over safely.

We finished with 7 minutes to spare! All in all this was a truly incredible experience and it really showed me what I was capable of. I don't think it's really my kinda thing but I learned a lot about myself and we really did have a lot of fun together. I'm glad I did it! Thanks Justin and Audra for being our teammates! Go team 4.0!!! {We are all Owen's and there were 4 of us...get it :)}