The BIG 20 week ultrasound!!!

OK- so I know that most people reading this already know the outcome of the BIG ultrasound, and may have already seen the pictures. But I still wanted to write a post for this day. This was on Dec. 28th-exactly a month ago today- I cannot believe that! Part of the reason I have not written this blog post yet is because the day was so so so emotional, I feel it's very hard for me to even write about it. The day was wonderful- but I was an emotional wreck! 

This day was the Christmas gift that Ryan and I were waiting for! It was already special because Ryan's parents were in town for Christmas and were able to be there with us. Ryan's sister, Camille was supposed to fly out the day before, but thanks to the wonderful snow storm that hit the east coast- her flight was cancelled. I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled that she would be able to be there with us too, it really made the day so much more special for me. 

Our appt. was scheduled for 1pm. Of course, I had a terrible time sleeping the night before. I was having crazy dreams that kept waking me up. I was feeling all sorts of things. ABOVE and beyond anything else I was freaking EXCITED! I couldn't wait to see our baby again, I couldn't to see how this baby was doing, and of course I couldn't wait to find out if we were expecting a boy or a girl. But at the same time I was nervous! I can't explain why- but I was. For the obvious reasons that I wanted everything to be ok, I just wanted to hear that we had a healthy baby growing in there!

Ryans parents and sister waiting for the appt. 

My parents waiting...

Ryan and I waiting. We are very excited and very happy- even though we don't necessarily look it in this  picture!!! 

Once we were finally called in for our appointment, I told the ultrasound technician that we had quite a few people coming in the room with us- luckily we were in a large enough room for everyone. With Ryans parents and sister, my parents, my grandmother and 8-year-old cousin, I was worried 9 of us would be too many for one room, but it was perfect.  I was so happy to have all of them there. 

When we got into the room layed down on the bed and everyone gathered around- I couldn't see the screen so I asked the technician if I would be able to see- she kind responded in a snotty way and said "Well as long as I can see" and slightly turned the screen my way. I was thinking-  UHHHH--HELLO?!? What pregnant woman would NOT want to see this?! I realize this is your job, and you do this ALL the time, but this is MY first time, MY first child, I WANT to see everything! I politely told the woman that I was very interested in everything that was going on and I would appreciate being able to see everything and asked if she would explain everything as she was going along. Thank-you-very-much. 

The ultrasound was long! We got to see so many great things. She pointed out the spine (which looks so cool, like a strand on pearls), the kidneys, we saw the brain and all that fun stuff. We saw baby's little hands and legs.  When the tech first started looking around the baby was facing my spine, so the tech said she'd check back in a bit and hopefully the baby would move so we could get a view of it's face. A little while later she went down to check baby's "area" of course, babies legs were crossed, so she said we'd have to check back and hopefully the baby would move. I was like, "come on, baby, we wanna see your face and I'd really love to know if your a boy or a girl". Although the ultrasound was long, and I was lying in an extremely uncomfortable position in order to see the screen, I LOVED every second of it! I was just in complete awe that all of these images were coming from INSIDE of me- they were images of MY baby, OUR baby- a baby that will be little pieces of me and Ryan. It was a crazy feeling. Finally we got to see the baby's face and even though it looked skeleton like I still thought it was the cutest little face ever! Thank goodness baby moved around we got images of the face AND of course- the most exciting part- we found out--

It's a GIRL!

I was so excited to hear this- I started crying. I had pretty strong feelings that the baby was a girl- and YES I have plenty of witnesses that will tell you I made that guess weeks before the ultrasound. We would have been beyond happy either way- it just felt SO good to finally KNOW for sure. 

After the appt. Ryan's parents had to head out to catch their flight. It was as always, hard to say goodbye. But I am really so happy that they were able to be there with us for this wonderful milestone in our pregnancy. I have such a wonderful family and I feel so blessed to be able to bring a new life into such a loving family.

We only got 4 pictures from the ultrasound, but I LOVE them, SO here she is- our Baby Princess...

Her little arm and cute little hand!

Baby girl facing us! In my eyes, thats the cutest little face ever!

Profile shots, in the first one her little mouth was open! So cute.  Love the second one- I cannot wait to kiss that little face!

We went straight home after the appt. I was completely exhausted. Since I had not slept the night before, then the whole morning I was nervous and laying in an awkward position for an hour during the appt, also since I was so nervous, my body had been tightened up all day. Plus I had felt SO many emotions in such a short period of time- I WAS physically and mentally exhausted. The rest of the day was a nice, relaxing, lazy day.

I feel truly blessed with this little lady that is going to be making us a family. I cannot wait to meet her! 

Christmas Eve/Christmas Day

This Christmas was a special one for Ryan and I for a few reasons. It was our first Christmas as a married couple. It was the first Christmas that Ryan and I had both our families together, which we were really excited about. Also, I was just really starting to "show" as far as baby belly goes! This made the whole holiday feel that much more special. After all, the Holidays are all about family, and here we are- starting our own!

Christmas Eve was wonderful and relaxing. Ryan had to work for a bit, so his parents, Rhonda and Gerad, his sister, Camille and I went out to avery nice dinner. By the time we were done with that Ryan was on his way home from work. We went to Christmas Eve mass which was wonderful. Afterward we came back to our house and opened gifts and enjoyed some mulled wine- and YES, I DID enjoy a small glass :)
It was a great day, a day filled with relaxation, family and love. There really is no better holiday than Christmas!


Christmas Eve- starting off with a bump pic. This was at 19 weeks 1 day.

My in-laws gave me this super cute ornament for our tree- to remember my first pregnant Christmas!

I LOVE it!

Our Christmas Tree and all our presents underneath.

Ryan's wonderful family. His sister Camille, Dad Gerad and Mom Rhonda. I love my Carrier family.

 

I am so lucky to have this handsome man as my husband.

Enjoying some mulled wine and family time.

Yes, we had the Yule Log on our television.

CHRISTMAS DAY!!!

We started off taking a nice winter walk. Such a great day with our families.

My brother, Harley and Ryan

Ryan being goofy.

Christmas dinner.

My parents Charlie Brown Christmas Tree!

 And one last Christmas picture- Whinnie loving her stocking!

I have to admit- sometimes this blogging thing is really tough- the last two posts took me like 3 or more hours to complete! My goodness! Between my computer being slow at uploading for some reason, and TWO times I completely deleted my entire posts (yup, twice- so frustrating!). I am sick and have been sitting on my couch all day so I guess I have nothing better to do- so I'll stop complaining!

I really hope that you all had Christmas's as wonderful as mine. I absolutely could not have imagined a better way to spend this holiday. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful family. I can't stop thinking about this little baby growing inside of me, I am so happy that she will be entering into such a wonderful, loving family! I am so blessed.

Christmas #1

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is our Stevenson Family Christmas party- my Mom's side of the fam. We have a party every year and I absolutely LOVE this party- it is the one time of year that all of us (most of the time) can get together. I look forward to this party all year long. My family is large, wonderful and very entertaining! Here is a look into our day-


PRESENTS! Since our family is so large we do our gift giving in a different kind of way- each person brings one gift and we play a "Chinese Auction" game. We have been doing this for a few years now and it is a very fun way to exchange gifts.

My cousin Alissa and her cutie-patootie son, Parker

My cousins Sonya, Amanda and my Aunt Dianan and Uncle John

For the gift giving game, my cousin, Amanda (above) made THE BEST gift- a scrap book of our entire family. It starts with pictures of my Grandma and Grandpa and then goes through each of their 6 children, their husbands/wives (my aunts and uncles) and their children (my cousins) and even their significant others/and children!! There was even an ultrasound pic of my little baby!  Of course- Grandma was the one who ended up with the gift and it was a HIT- almost everyone else wanted to steal the book (its part of the game!) BUT no one did- who could steal such a wonderful gift from Grandma!?

My cousin, Michael, his wonderful wife, Brianne, and their son, Brayden!

My cousin, Renee passed away from cancer last September. It was and still is one of the toughest things our family has ever gone through, Renee was an amazing, beautiful, 25 year old woman, and we were all so blessed to have her in our lives. To remember and honor her this Christmas, we lit and released a few Wish Lanterns. We all said hello, and let her know how much we wished she was with us. We said Merry Christmas and We Miss You as we watched the lanterns float up into the night sky. I absolutely loved that we did this.

My mom (who is sitting next to me) brought me some sparkling wild berry juice so that I could have some sort of festive drink! And YES I am drinking it from a wine glass!

My Aunt Sue and Uncle Gary moved out of state recently- so since they couldn't be with us we SKYPED them. I absolutely LOVE skype. It's so great to be able to SEE and HEAR your loved ones when they are far away.

Pretty much how all Christmas parties end right? Loungin' around, watching TV, relaxing.

I just absolutely LOVE my family. I feel totally blessed to be a part of such a loving, supportive family. <3

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!

I am a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad blogger. I have completely abandoned this blog for OVER a month! At first my excuse was the holidays- always a very busy time! But since the first week of January I really have no excuse since I have been doing pretty much nothing! I have been mostly relaxing this past few weeks, while on Winter Break from school. School starts up again on Monday! yikes! But really- I don't know why I haven't been blogging- just kind of felt "over it" for a little while. My computer time over the past few weeks has mostly consisted of mindless things- which is a great relief from the busyness of the semesters! So I think that the effort it takes to blog sometimes really threw me off, even though I really do ENJOY doing this- I just wanted nothing to do with writing and dealing with the process of uploading pictures and all of that. You all know how annoying computers can be sometimes! BUT anwway- enough excuses- I'll just say SORRY and leave it at that!

Since I have taken so many pictures and so many things have happened in the past month- I WILL take the time to add a few posts to catch everyone up! So the following few posts will be a recap of my life over the past month- pregnancy related and otherwise!  and I will TRY TRY TRY to update this blog at least ONCE a week from here on out- Thanks again for following along! :)