21 Weeks Pregnant

So I promised everyone that I would post some pictures of me right now, but I only have one. It's hard to post pregnancy pictures when there's not a whole lot to show (Russ always ends up laughing after he attempts to take pictures of me...), but here's one for now. As I start showing more I'll post more. This is of me at 21 weeks. :)

IT'S A BOY!!!!

Alright, everyone! The wait is over! Russ and I found out yesterday at approximately 9:10 am that we're having a little boy! Russell Tip Schafer III is due February 26, 2010 and we can't wait to meet him! It was such a surreal and exciting experience to see him yesterday, if only for a little while, and to be reassured that there IS a little baby growing inside of me! He's a completely healthy and strong little guy and we're extremely grateful for that.

Right when the ultrasound tech put the ultrasound to my stomach, we got to see the baby moving and wiggling around, which was so fun! As some of you know, I'm not that big yet, so it was nothing short of miraculous to be able to see an actual human being in there. Russ and I couldn't get over the fact that the baby has already gotten so big since we saw him last, which was at 10 weeks, so 10 weeks ago. It was the most exciting and spiritual moment I think Russ and I have had together thus far. We couldn't stop laughing and marveling at how precious the experience was and we're so grateful to our Heavenly Father for entrusting us with this little spirit.

We've already caught a glimpse of his personality-- at first he was wiggling around and showing off his ability to move, but then about halfway through the ultrasound he put his hand up to his face and was instantly calm and relaxed. At first we thought he might be sucking his thumb, but the tech said that there was no sucking motion, so he was obviously just comforted by his little hand. It was so cute! And then I realized last night that I do the EXACT SAME THING!! Whenever I fall asleep or wake up in the middle of the night, 9 times out of 10 MY hand is somehow touching my face! I told Russ that he's already so much like his mom!! And as Russ pointed out, "Well, he may be like you except for the fact that he's a boy." Thanks, Russ. :)

We have ultrasound pictures and tried to scan them in last night, but it wasn't working right and Russ and I (definitely more me than him!) were so tired last night that we said that we've figure it out today, so hopefully I'll have some fun pictures to post really soon. I'll also include my belly shots... which apparently STILL isn't that big, even though I can definitely feel the change and feel huge. Oh well. I'm grateful I'm not that big, but at the same time I think it's going to be really fun to have a giant belly and FINALLY get compliments from other people that I'm pregnant. I still get the, "You're five months along! I was that big when I was 3 months!" Yeah, well, whatever. Everyone carries differently and my time will come soon enough. ha ha!

Thanks for all of the "congratulations" and happy wishes! Russ and I couldn't be happier right now and I know that in February we'll be a lot happier! Life has been a blast so far, so I'm really looking forward to this next chapter!

Is it a BOY or a GIRL??

Okay, everyone! It's time to cast your vote! Russ and I go in on Wednesday to see if it's a boy or a girl, and if all goes well, we'll be posting the results that day! Let me know what you think it is! I'm DYING to know myself, so it'll be fun to see what everyone else thinks it is! Good luck! :)

Russ thinks it's a boy and I'm leaning more towards a girl... WHO WILL BE RIGHT??

Labor Day Weekend- Camping, Family, and BBQ's!!!

Russ and I had a really fun Labor Day weekend! We went and saw GI Joe on Saturday and it was really good, we went camping by ourselves (AWESOME!) and hung out with family and went to TOO many bbq's... I wasn't really looking pregnant until after this weekend! And it wasn't the baby! :)

Anyway, here are some pics we took of camping... I don't know why I didn't take any of hanging out with family, but I didn't. I'm kind of bummed about that, but I can only remember so much! I'm pregnant and apparently, as I've learned, memories for pregnant women is pretty much non-existent! Fun times at work sometimes! ha ha!

Our two-man tent... PERFECT for us! We went to bed around 11 and got up around 1oam! It was awesome! :)

Russ thinking that tucking in his shirt would be a funny picture.

Oh, Russ...

Our HAPPY morning/ camping smiles!

So I wanted a picture of my progress thus far, but as Russ told me and as you can see, there's not a whole lot yet... to ME there is, though! That little pooch wasn't there before, but I'll be happy with that. I don't know... I want to LOOK pregnant and not just FEEL pregnant! Is that too much to ask for? I'm already 16 weeks along (this was technically taken at 15 weeks). I'll blame it on the long torso. Anyway, there will for sure be more pictures as I get bigger... who knows when that will happen, though. ?? :)

We camped right on a river kind of up American Fork Canyon. Beautiful!


I love seeing flags in everyone's yard. The cute Boy Scouts in our ward are always very diligent about putting one in ours, which we're very thankful for.

Well, we're trying to take as many trips as we can before the baby comes, so there will be more posts to follow. Keep us updated with all of your lives, too!

Cute Daddy Story

This story was too cute to not write down. I'm not very big on writing in a journal, so this is the closest I get.

Since finding out we are going to be parents, we've obviously been very excited about getting ready for the baby. I've been endlessly searching magazines and the web to find the perfect crib, stroller, playpen, etc. Russ, for the most part, has let me do this on my own, with grunts and mm-hmm's every once in a while whenever I ask him if he likes what I've "picked" out. Well, this last Saturday we had about an hour before the Salt Lake Bee's baseball game, so I said it might be fun to go to Toys R Us to go look at baby things and just go have fun looking around. Little did I know that he would enjoy it SO MUCH MORE THAN I WOULD!! It was HILARIOUS watching and listening to him with the wide eyes and all of the "ooohs" and "ahhhs" and "remember this?" and "we're so getting this for the baby!". I have to admit that I was really surprised, but more so impressed! This is the same guy that says, "You can decorate the house however you want. I know you'll make the house beautiful without my help."???

So then again today I asked him if he wanted to go to Babies R Us to go look at cribs (we still haven't seen any in person), and told him that we could go somewhere manly to balance it out.... he replied, "Sure! That would be fun! And we don't need to go anywhere manly. Being a dad is about as manly as you can get." HOW CUTE IS THAT??? It was so sweet I almost cried!

I don't mean to embarrass Russ, but I HAD to share this story! I really am the luckiest, happiest wife EVER! He's been such an amazing husband and I always knew he'd be an amazing dad, but I have been so thankful that he's been so great about being a dad way before the baby gets here. Having him enjoy all of this preparation makes ME enjoy it so much more! I love you, Russ!

Ok, so more of the story... We didn't find out until the Thursday before Father's Day, which was perfect because his family came into town that night and I was able to tell Russ by himself before the rest of the family showed up. And it was so perfect and fitting that it was just before Father's Day! I was so excited that I went to Wal-Mart and bought a bunch of cute baby things: a binky, a bottle, a multi-gender baby outfit, some toys, and a diaper which I had left over from babysitting my cousin's kids. :) I also got him a pair of sporty sunglasses because he has a hard time keeping any pair of sunglasses I buy him. ha ha! Anyway, I put it all in a bag with a Father's Day card to a soon-to-be dad and wrote his a sweet, funny letter telling him how much I loved and appreciated him, as well as how excited I am for him to one day be a dad. Each paragraph had something to do with each baby item and as he would read it, I would pull whatever it was out of the bag for him. Needless to say he caught on pretty quickly, but I still made him read through the whole letter and at the very end I told him that he was going to be the BEST dad... in 8 and a half months. :) He teared up, I teared up and it was just a really tender moment for both of us. He really is going to be a GREAT daddy! Here are some pictures of that day:

The Gift Bag

Russ reading the card... hasn't caught on yet! :)

The cute baby things :)

Our exciting moment!!!

Alright, let's skip ahead a little to my 6 week mark. Since I had a molar pregnancy last year (a rare form of pregnancy that doesn't quite make a baby... it's a lengthy explanation so if you want you can look it up) I had to be monitored pretty much from day 1. I went in two weeks earlier than most to my first doctor's visit and had my first ultrasound that actually showed something on the screen! YAY!!

Yay for my little dot!

Yeah, yeah... daddy can see you. Don't worry. :)

The Happy Family

I've had two more ultrasounds and I have the pictures, so I'll post those as soon as I can scan then in. It's so amazing that they grow so fast! It started out as a speck and now it's so big! I can't wait until I can stop referring to the baby as an "it" and start saying "he" or "she"! We'll have to wait about two more months for that, though, so I'll definitely keep everyone posted! It's so much better to actually have something to post rather than how the weekend was or another night sitting at home while Russ finishes his homework/class two weeks before it ends because he's a huge procrastinator. Yeah.

Anyway, I'm 11 weeks today! Time's already flown by, so February will be just around the corner!

The Happy Little Family

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl in a magical little town called Springville, UT. They loved each other VERY much and decided to start trying to have a baby. They had some complications last year and had to wait A WHOLE YEAR to start trying again, but they were very patient and really enjoyed the extra year they had to spend with one another.

On June 5, 2009, something miraculous happened and three and a half weeks later they discovered they were pregnant! Now she's ten and half weeks along, has had three ultrasounds, all indicating that it's a viable and very healthy pregnancy, and everyone in the land is SO happy for them! The boy, Russ, is especially excited to be a daddy and is having so much fun with the whole process. The girl, Brie, has been extremely lucky in that she really hasn't been sick at all and has really enjoyed being pregnant. The time has already flown by so quickly that by February 26, 2010, they'll be wondering where their alone time went! :)

Grandma Smith, Brie's mom, has already gone crazy with the preparations and is buying everything baby that she can get her hands on... and Russ and Brie ARE NOT complaining in the least! Both sides of their family are super excited, especially Brie's side since this will be the first niece/nephew/grandchild in her family, and Russ's family is all hoping that they have the first boy. Russ is the only link to the Schafer name, so if they don't have a boy, the Schafer name dies... no pressure, though. :) Russ and Brie will be excited and grateful for either. Actually, on the second ultrasound, the tech couldn't decided if there were twins, but two weeks later it was confirmed that it was only one. Whew!!!! Brie was incredibly relieved.

Now that they have a baby on the way and it's far enough along to tell everyone, they're finally making it public. They are so happy to finally be able to add a new member to their family and can't wait until February. It'll be one of the best days of their lives... if Russ can stay coherent and not pass out when the baby's born. He has a tendency to get nauseous and dizzy and almost pass out when it comes to things like this, so we're praying that Daddy can be there... the WHOLE time. Brie's confident that he can and will do everything in her power to make it as easy as possible for him.

It's not "The End", but a To Be Continued.... :)