Morning in Malibu

Saturday (the 16th) greeted us with the most gorgeous morning, and we took full advantage of it by heading to our favorite LA County beach -- El Matador in Malibu. El Matador is less of a "play in the water" beach and more of a "take in the beautiful views, explore the tide pools, smell the salt water, and listen to the waves gently crash as you walk along the shore with your feet in the sand" kind of beach. Which is perfect for a sunny morning in February, if you ask me. 

Running Runyon

We've been craving some California sunshine and, luckily, got to spend an entire week soaking it up over Valentine's and President's Days. Matt, Jake and I brought my siblings Christian and Heidi along and we were all basking in the warmer-than-forecasted weather that ended up in the 80's most days. It was the best kind of shot in the arm, and all that sunshine did my then-20-weeks-pregnant self some serious good. The trip was nothing out of the ordinary -- we just stayed with some of our favorite people (the Rozsas, of course) and did a few of our favorite things -- but that's what made it so fun!

And yet, it was sort of a mean trick, too, because it was all so normal that Matt and I kept expecting it to be our normal life. Next weekend we should go there. ... Let's call these friends to play! ... Traffic might be bad, let's take the back way home. Except, we weren't going home and it wasn't just the normal life we loved. It was a vacation, and one that would have to end. At least we really love our current home, though, and the people that surround it! That definitely made coming back to Utah feel better. :) Unlike the snow. On President's Day, we woke up, went for a run in gorgeous 75-degree weather, packed up our car, and drove away from the palm trees and into almost a week of cold snow. How rude. But the sun is out today and Spring has to come soon, right? The groundhog said so. Anyway.

One of the highlights of our trip was running Runyon Canyon with Jake on the 15th. We've explored the Hollywood Hills a few times before, but never with a baby in a BOB. Matt definitely got a good workout pushing Jake up those bumpy inclines! It was a beautiful, warm, clear day and we loved taking in the views of Los Angeles as we ran/hiked the hills.

Jake loved being in his stroller again and got a kick out of the sometimes-bumpy ride and was so excited to see each and every puppy along the way... but was less than thrilled when we stopped to take a couple pictures. Can we just get back to playing, Mom?

Pregnancy Update

This is the last pregnancy post for now, I promise! But since I'm more than halfway done with this pregnancy (?!?!), I figured I'd better do a quick/so-long-it's-a-novel pregnancy details post to get you all caught up. Okay, it's more for me than for you. Sorry! Do not worry -- this will be the only one of its kind during said pregnancy.

Baby Girl

Our baby girl is due in early July, measuring right on track, super active, and perfectly healthy! We had a bit of a scare early on, but test results came back looking good and we are extremely grateful. Matt and I love this little girl so much already! We think Jake is catching on, too, judging from the fact that he used to say "Baby" on command just fine (it was his first word, actually), but now whenever we ask him to say "Baby," he points at me and says "Mommy!" So either all those "There's a baby in Mommy's tummy" comments are making complete sense and he knows there's a baby in Mom's tummy, or they are terribly confusing the little guy and he thinks that Mommy is turning into a baby. I guess we'll find out!

In Jake's first ultrasound pictures at 13 weeks, he was lying back, relaxing with both hands behind his head. We loved that he was just chillin' and getting comfy in there. So when we peeked at Baby #2 at 11 weeks and she was in the exact same position, we couldn't help but laugh. As silly as it sounds, it'd been hard picturing loving another baby as much as we love Jake -- he's as perfect as they come in our eyes! -- so when we saw another baby just as awesome as him that early on, it was reassuring. Just as with Jake, seeing her made everything feel so real and we fell in love with her right away. Somehow, my heart will just have to be able to handle loving two little ones that much without bursting.

The doctor was able to determine that she's a girl at our 15 week appointment. We would have been equally happy with a boy (how fun would that be to have two little buddies so close in age?), but we were thrilled to find out that we'll have a little lady in our house come July. After five little brothers and my own little boy all in a row, it's probably time for some pink, eh? She's already proven to be rather expensive, though... her Daddy needs to just prepare for a few decades of handing over the wallet I suppose. Matt is going to be wrapped around her little fingers.

Our little girl at 19 weeks!

Bump Watch

Just as before, I went from thin to thick in the first 20 weeks, but there's not much to report in the "bump" area. I do have disappearing bloat that makes dressing myself fairly difficult -- one day my jeans fit, the next they don't, the very next they do again (it was terribly inconvenient when the gender reveal party fell on a "don't" day) -- but nothing that sticks. I have a feeling that my regular clothes' days are numbered, though, because I seem to be weighing and looking like I did at 24ish weeks last time, which means a bump is most certainly on the horizon. I'm excited about that! Also? I can already tell that I'm carrying this little girl higher than I carried Jake. The ultrasound techs find her higher and I feel her higher than last time around. I admit that the nerd in me is interested in this little experiment of seeing how different the two pregnancies will end up being.

At 20 weeks in Malibu.

"Morning" Sickness

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "morning" sickness is a joke, probably penned by a man who had no idea what he was talking about. It is an all-day sickness, my friends.

I wake up feeling nauseous and exhausted and it gets progressively worse throughout the day, until finally the night comes and I usually give in to the toilet. And the days when I start by throwing up and then it gets progressively worse? So rude. Toss in a toddler who needs your attention -- and who you want to give it to! -- and it gets a little rough at times. I actually think I'm fairly equally sick (maybe a bit worse?) with this little girl as I was with Jake, but it seems harder because I can't rest like I could last time. I'm not too proud to admit that this pregnancy has made a Backyardigans and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse fan out of my little guy. Sometimes, a pregnant mom just has to lie on the couch for 20 minutes to survive. I know a lot of ladies have it far worse than me, though, so bless all of your hearts! Thank goodness I've finally turned a corner, stopped throwing up, and started feeling a little better. And it's all for the greatest reason, so it's definitely worth it in the end.

Evidence.

Emotions

I am not an emotional person. I have never been an emotional person. Just ask my mother. As a child? Not emotional. As a teenager? Strong-willed, perhaps, but not emotional. Even while pregnant with Jake, I was just my regular old self. I mean, maybe I teared up at a couple commercials, but that was it. For me, if I actually cry over something, you'd better be terribly concerned because something has to be terribly wrong.

You guys. Being pregnant with a girl? I have all these feelings. And, quite frankly, I don't know what to do with them. A few weeks ago, I'd had a happy, fun day with Jake, Matt had come home early and we'd had a yummy dinner, Jake was sleeping peacefully, and I went out to run errands. It'd been a great day! But I called Matt about twenty minutes into said errands and announced that I knew I was happy, but I just really felt like I had to cry. And so we laughed. And that's just sort of how it is with extra lady hormones running rampant, I guess.

Not this bad, but you know.

Building a House/Moving while Pregnant

Not recommended. Toward the end, when there were stupid little issues that were out of our control (like, the inspector showing up four hours before the master shower surround did and therefore marking that we didn't have a shower surround and causing us to close an entire week later than our already-late finish date), nausea/exhaustion/hormones didn't quite take them in the same stride that a normal Ashley would have. I was moody and mad and I admit it.

Also? Moving in while still sick-pregnant? And with a toddler? And during the holidays? Laughable, really. Which would explain why we still have the "forbidden room" upstairs that one can hardly step into. The deal is, during the day when I felt decent enough to unpack boxes and put things away, Jake was hanging on my legs and/or taking everything off the shelves as I put them on. It was counterproductive and not worth it. And at night after he'd gone to bed, the toilet was my friend, not boxes. Add in a couple sick baby bouts, too, and it was slow going there for quite the while. We're finally getting life together now, though, so hooray for that!

Our little box-loving helper.

Milestones

Okay, this is the fun part. And it's even more fun this time around because I'm more confident in recognizing milestones as they come! I felt our little girl move for the first time at about 14 weeks. With Jake, I wasn't sure if it was him or me that early on, but now I've been around the block and know the difference, and it was so exciting to realize that I was feeling her -- my baby girl. She's an active one, which makes it quite easy as well. Well, easy for me but hard for the ultrasound techs! We had a level 2 ultrasound a couple weeks ago and it took extra long because our little girl wouldn't hold still long enough to get the measurements they needed. Hopefully that means she'll be a spunky one :)

15 weeks - the Davis GIRLS!

Matt actually felt her kick already, right at 19 weeks. It was such a fun surprise! I love sharing that excitement with him and letting him bond with our baby, too. Have I mentioned that we're excited??

The Happy News

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments on this blog and facebook and e-mails and texts and phone calls. Your love and support mean so much to us! Finally sharing our happiness with people that we care about makes the whole experience so much sweeter.

It took nearly a year and a half to get pregnant with Jake, so we were prepared to wait a bit for baby #2 as well. The plan was to begin trying in December so they'd be at least two years apart, but then fall rolled around and we felt very, very strongly that we were supposed to move up that time frame. When the positive pregnancy test came, I was shocked on one hand -- aren't I supposed to get about 15 negatives first? But on the other, I wasn't surprised at all because it had been so clear that even waiting a couple extra months until December would have been too much and that for whatever reason, this baby was supposed to come right now. And she did! We still have to keep pinching ourselves, we feel so lucky.

Telling Matt

I quickly enlisted Jake's help and made another book to tell Matt about our baby (thank you, Walmart, for your same-day photo books). Thanksgiving was coming up in a couple weeks, so I called it Jake's Thankful Book and filled it with a poem and corresponding pictures of everything Jake is thankful for at this little stage in his life. We drove up to check on our house and I nonchalantly pulled the book from the car, like, "Hey! Look at what I just made for Jake. I saw it on Pinterest, we'll have him make one every Thanksgiving to track what he's interested in and grateful for... yada, yada... Here, read it." And so Matt did:

I'm thankful for my Mommy and I'm thankful for my Dad.
I'm thankful for all the great friends I've ever had.
I'm thankful for puppies, and for kitties, too.
I'm thankful for my houses -- the old and the new.
I'm thankful for the gospel and I'm thankful for good books.
I'm thankful for food, though I could use a better cook.
I'm thankful for football, and for Disneyland.
I'm thankful for Happy Days and the ocean's sand.
I'm thankful for my blessings, but more than any other
Right now, I'm so thankful that...

Matt wasn't expecting it at all, and the Pinterest excuse kept him from being suspicious of the book (which is great, because I was sure it'd be a dead giveaway since that's how I told him the first time around, too). So when he came to that final page, he was genuinely surprised and beyond thrilled. We spent the rest of day laughing and crying and celebrating. It was a happy day!

Telling Family

Living with my family at the time basically erased any chance I had of waiting to tell them in a cute way when I was a little further along. It's sort of impossible to hide those first few weeks of toilet hugging and sheer exhaustion. The sickness hit me like a freight train right before five weeks and was simply brutal for the next month. Then it kindly let up just enough to function like a tired, nauseous human being that usually only threw up at night (up until a week ago, folks. Still not 100% around here). But anyway, yes. Hard to hide. Basically, my mom and siblings above the age of 10 had all guessed it and asked about it before we ever had a chance to bring it up and tell them. Sort of a bummer.

I still got to tell the little boys how I wanted to, though. On Christmas, we had them gather to watch Jake open his final present of the day -- a big brother shirt. They were so shocked ("But you don't look pregnant!" "That's because I'm only 12 weeks along.") and so excited, and it was a fun little Christmas surprise.

We'd planned on Jake showing up in his new shirt at Matt's family party on Christmas night, but our little guy was sick so he didn't go with us. Without Jake, Matt and I weren't sure if we should wait to tell the Davises or not, but ended up deciding while at the party that we wanted everyone to get to be there for the announcement. So we quickly just pulled up an ultrasound picture, sent it to his parents' new digital picture frame, and let it come up during presents. It worked.

Gender Reveal

Since we didn't get to announce the pregnancy the ways we'd wanted, we (okay, I) decided to go all out with a big gender reveal party. We hosted the party on the 9th and had so much fun celebrating this baby girl with our families. I'll post about that later, but here's a little sneak peek in the meantime:

In case you forgot, it's a girl :)

It's a ... !

Surprise! I'm about 20 weeks pregnant. And it's a girl!!! We feel so blessed, and are so excited we can hardly stand it!

Happy Valentine's Day from all four of us!

A Valentine's Date

In the beginning, Matt and I celebrated Valentine's Day early out of necessity. The holiday fell during the week, which was sort of inconvenient for a long-distance couple, so we'd have "our" Valentine's Day a weekend or two before the real deal. That worked out so well -- less crowded restaurants, more intimate settings -- that we've kept our pre-Valentine's date up ever since. And now that we're together on the real day, too, we've added a simpler celebration at home complete with waffles and strawberries and sparkling cider. We love it.

This year, Matt took me to Tuscany for our pre-Valentine's Day date. It's my favorite restaurant in Salt Lake but Matt had never been, so this outing was long overdue. We dropped Jake off at Grandma's, ran a bunch of errands (oh, the romance!), and then pulled up to the complimentary valet in front of Tuscany. It's such a beautiful restaurant and has such beautiful grounds, and I especially love it at night when it's all lit up with thousands of twinkling lights. We treated ourselves to a five-course meal, all of which was beyond delicious. The best treat of all, though, was getting to sit down and focus on each other for a couple hours. I'm still falling deeper and deeper in love with that boy, and it's so fun to slow down enough to feel those butterflies all over again. And on that note, I suppose it's easy to say that our Valentine's celebration was a success.

This picture came from Open Table (which explains the daytime and horrible resolution), but isn't it pretty inside?

And guess what? With this post, I'm all caught up on the blog! Hip, hip, hooray! I'm excited to finally blog in real-time-ish again.

Snowboarding at Telluride

Playing on the mountain at Telluride was amazing. We had plenty of fresh powder, a light snowfall, and nearly-empty runs. What more could you ask for? (Aside from temperatures above 3 degrees, that is.)

Matt, Christian and I had so much fun exploring the mountain via the easy runs on a Friday in early January. The mountains were beyond gorgeous and the lightly falling snow made them seem majestic. It was so beautiful and peaceful up there, and we were alone on the mountain more often than we had to share it. (Going one week after the holidays definitely helped!) We stuck to the greens for my sake, and I'm happy to report that I didn't fall one single time. (Of course, I wasn't practicing any new skills and their greens were so subtly sloped that we had to pick up our boards and walk in a few places, and I don't even remember the last time I fell, but still. Always a noteworthy accomplishment.) The boys stayed out longer than I did to check out the blues and they came off the mountain so excited for Saturday.

The next day, I stayed behind and relaxed in the resort while the boys played on the black diamonds. Let me tell you, a day all to myself to just sleep in and lie by the fire and be? So nice. We'd talked about maybe leaving around 1 or 2 to get a head start on the drive, but every time we touched base they were having so much fun that we decided they should just keep going. Despite single-digit temperatures and even losing a glove, they stayed on the mountain from the moment the lifts opened until the moment they closed. It was the best ski trip we ever could have imagined!

At the top of Telluride!