Hank's Blessing

On Sunday March 6, 2011, we blessed our little Hank! It was a stressful but wonderful day. We had soooo many family members and friends come to support us! In fact, I don't think I have ever seen a circle quite so big! Travis gave an absolutely amazing blessing and then we had a wonderful testimony meeting. I was pretty much crying the whole time. I am just so grateful for the many worthy Priesthood holders in my family- especially Travis. He is such a good husband and father.



One really cool thing is we were able to bless Hank in the same outfit Travis was blessed in! Brenda made it over 25 years ago for her son and then he got to bless his own son in the same outfit. I just thought that was awesome! It was such a wonderful day! Our sweet boy is getting bigger every day and we fall more and more in love with him every day. He is almost four months now!! I can't believe how fast time is flying by! He is already such a Daddy's boy and I just love it! It has been fun to see Travis take on the role of a father. Life is just so good!!!





I love our little man's smile! Such a cute face! He looks just like his Dad!

Hank

I wrote this post about two months ago but never finished it-- so I am just now adding it. It is a little outdated, but better late than never, right?





How horrible is it that I am just now blogging about my son when he is over two months old?? Better late than never I guess.

We have the most precious little addition to our family and we are L-O-V-I-N-G it! He was 4 weeks early and only 4 lbs 13 oz, but completely healthy! He is our little miracle baby! I won't go into details about his birth, but I will say that it was the most amazing day of my life and I would do it again in a heart beat. I never thought that I would enjoy that day, but I did and I miss it. There is nothing like holding your baby for the first time and the emotions that come with becoming a parent. Best thing ever!

His first two months of life have gone without incident- thank goodness! Because of his size and the time of year, we have had to be really careful to not expose him to too much because his little body wouldn't be able to handle much but he is getting so strong and the doctors aren't as concerned about him anymore. At his two month appointment he weighed 7 lbs 4 oz so he is still tiny! I have finally been able to put newborn clothes on him rather than preemie this week. I love babies so I have just enjoyed having a little one for so long. He is the sweetest little dude ever! I have never felt more blessed!

Top Ten Things I Love About Being Pregnant!

I haven't done a good job at posting about my pregnancy which is sad because it's my first pregnancy and I should be better at documenting things so I don't forget later. But this pregnancy has felt like an emotional roller coaster with the different complications I have had and I haven't been in the mood to post about it. So- I decided to make a list of my favorite parts of being pregnant! In no particular order, my top ten reasons for loving being pregnant:

• Having an excuse for my larger-than-it-should-be belly.
• Feeling my baby move! I felt our little guy move for the first time around 19 weeks and a few weeks later Travis was able to feel him too! He is constantly moving! I am afraid he will be just like his Dad in that way-- always on the go!
• Sunday dinners from Travis's mom! A few complications started a new tradition- a yummy home-cooked meal every Sunday with the Burtons. Who could ask for more?
• Seeing people's reactions to the name we have picked out. I am pretty sure my Grandpa still thinks we are teasing, but we are completely serious!
• The amount of people who are praying for our little guy makes me feel very humble! It is amazing the amount of prayers that have been said for little Hank and we couldn't be more grateful for them!
• Reading "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" and following the growth of our baby. He is getting so big! He is over 3 pounds now!
• Having an even better excuse to go to the chiropractor regularly and have my back and neck adujusted! Not that I need more of an excuse, but it is always nice to have another reason to go!
• Seeing the ultrasound pictures of him! My doctor is an amazing doctor and we get an ultrasound close to every appointment which is just so fun!
• Eating my favorite ice cream and not feeling guilty about it! For any chocolate lovers out there, you have got to try Death By Chocolate Ice Cream. Oh my is it yummy! It is Kroger brand and quite cheap- especially if you catch it on sale!
• Talking with Travis about our future family and knowing that we are so close to adding our first child to our family! We love him so much already and can't wait to meet him!

Here are a couple of the ultrasounds we have gotten. Hopefully you will be able to tell what you are looking at...

This is the ultrasound we got around 20 weeks. He is looking to the left so you can see his profile and you can see his little hand up by his nose.


This is the latest ultrasound we got at 30 weeks. He is getting sooooo big! He is looking to the right in this one with his arm covering his chin.

We are just so grateful for our little guy and are enjoying the last bit of time we have with just the two of us until our lives change for good in a few months! Yay! We can't wait!

We are having a.....

I know posts without pictures are kinda lame... but I haven't posted in forever and we have some really exciting news! Most everyone knows we are expecting a baby! (Woohoo!) The due date is Christmas Eve which has its pros and cons. But--- yesterday we found out the gender of the baby! We are having a little baby boy! We are very excited-- especially Travis! Now we have to decide on a name. We have had a girl name picked out since we were married, but boys have been harder. Lately the names we have agreed on are Hank and Porter, but we are leaning toward Hank because Porter is so popular right now. What do you think of Hank? Most people don't seem to like it much... Maybe we will start a new baby name trend... probably not.

The Biggest Loser

I am thinking about starting a Biggest Loser competition. Each person who participates would put in around $25.00 so that we all have motivation to win! It would be for 12 weeks with weekly challenges to keep the motivation high. Is anybody interested? Let me know!

Family Motto

For the past few months I have been thinking about a family motto for my family. I know, I know, there are only two of us, but what better time than now to get started, right? Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas or will share theirs so Travis and I can have a bunch of different ideas. Do any of you guys have family mottos or did you have any growing up? Let me know!!!

Book Review and an Update

I was supposed to read a non fantasy book after all of my fantasy reading lately, but, needless to say, I’ve been reading more fantasy. I will blame it on the library because these books have been really hard to get ahold of and my sister was able to get them from her library and I didn’t want to miss the chance to read them. It is kind of nice having two sisters close and my mom close so that we can all share the library books each of us gets. It works out pretty nicely.

Anyway, I read the “Fablehaven” series by Brandon Mull and I really enjoyed them. It is about two children, Kendra and Seth, who go and spend time with their grandparents and their grandparents happen to be the caretakers of Fablehaven, a safe haven for fable creatures... hence the name. The first book is all about Kendra and Seth slowly finding out about Fablehaven because they have no clue it exists. They just thought they were spending the summer with their grandparents. The rest of the books are about trying to protect Fablehaven and the other safe havens for the magical creatures around the world. The books are kind of long, but very easy reading so you get through them fast. They are great, clean, exciting books that I would recommend to anyone who has a love for a fantasy twist in the real world.

Due to the book reviews in my last few posts, I hardly ever give updates on what Trav and I are up to. There have been a couple of things I have wanted to post about, but whenever I think about it I don’t have the camera to load pictures and frankly, I love posts with pictures. For example, one night at about 9:30 p.m. Travis decided he wanted to make a snowman. It was one of the many days this winter where it snowed all day and we got a few inches of snow. So— we went outside and made a snowman. It was really fun and quite random! And our snowman turned out very unique.... I really wish I had a picture. First of all, it had deer antlers. Secondly, there were no rocks to be found, so the eyes and buttons are made of snowballs rolled in mud. We did not have a carrot, so the nose is made from a extra sprinkler thing left over from our new sprinkler system. And, last but not least, I decided to make it a colored snowman by putting a few drops of dye in a spray bottle with water and spraying the snowman, but my hand got tired so only the middle ball is dyed orange. Nice. It turned out pretty odd, but it was really fun to act like kids for a few minutes and roll around in the snow! Good times!

Anyway, things have been going great lately. We are loving the warmer weather! We recently bought a 4-wheeler which Travis is pretty dang excited about. I should be classified as the best wife ever because I would much rather have spent the money on a Baby Grand Piano or something. Oh well. He will have fun. I guess I am a little bit excited about it because it will make the deer hunt a lot easier! But I still say Travis is spoiled! Problem is I don’t have anyone to blame but myself!