I seriously took ZERO pictures of Thanksgiving. We were running around like crazy people and I feel so dumb for forgetting! Oh well! You can look at my popping belly and decide if it’s pie or baby in there.

Before we left to spend time up north for the break, we decorated our little apartment for Christmas. It was SO fun to put up our tree and all our decorations. I’m in love with Christmas!

Wednesday after Randy finished school, we headed up to Kaysville for the break!

We immediately did a gender reveal for my family, who were all in town for the holiday. It was SO fun (see next post for the video!)

We then had a Thanksgiving dinner with my immediate family which was really fancy and so special! We celebrated my brother in California who passed the bar (Way to go Ben!) and baby boy Low!

Wednesday night we played games with my cousins and ate pie, having a blast.

Thursday we woke up early to go play our Thanksgiving Frisbee game. We’re all getting old and there wasn’t very many of us, so we didn’t last long! We did a Thanksgiving Gratitude Journal entry, made brussels sprouts, and got ready for the day. We popped in on my extended family Thanksgiving for a bit before heading up to Logan for Randy’s family Thanksgiving.

We did a gender reveal with his extended family the moment we arrived, which was so fun!

We spent the day playing games, eating delicious food, and making music! It was just the best day!

We stayed up way too late again Thursday night eating pie and hanging out with cousins.

Friday, we were up bright and early to do some shopping! Randy and I spent WAY too much money and got most of our Christmas shopping done! We also got some deals on stuff for our little dude, which was too fun.

We went back to Kaysville to decorate for Christmas at my mom’s, and have a delicious dinner with Randy’s parents. We stayed up super late AGAIN playing games and decorating the Christmas tree.

Saturday we went to see Wonder and it was SUCH a good movie! It’s unfair to make a pregnant mom of a little boy watch that movie though. I was BAWLING the whole time!

Randy had to do some school work up at the University so I did some more shopping, then we went to a delicious Ramen Restaurant in Ogden and saw the Ogden Christmas Light Parade, which was really fun.

We headed home and spent Sunday relaxing and getting caught up on all our house things. It was one of the best Thanksgiving weekends I can remember, and we’re THRILLED that next year we will have our little man with us!

Don’t worry, I’ll be posting a whole video and blog post all about finding out the gender of Baby Low!

We are THRILLED to be having a little boy, and I’ll tell you all more about it in that post! (I just have to get my act together and edit the video!)

For my Maternity Monday, I wanted to share one of my very favorite shops Wight Gold. It has the CUTEST stuff and they are having a HUGE Cyber Monday sale and posting new arrivals every few hours!

I seriously LOVE Wight Gold, they have darling things and as I’ve been shopping for things that I can keep wearing throughout the pregnancy, they’ve been one of my favorites! You can clearly tell which items will keep working, and they even have a “nursing friendly” section of the website to make it obvious which items will be great for after Baby Low arrives! I’m seriously in love with this shop! And it’s owned by the SWEETEST girl, for sure go check it out!

Symptoms: If I move around too fast I still feel nauseous, and I can’t eat as much at each meal as normal! So I eat a smaller meal and then I’m hungry again in a few hours haha!

Sleep: I’ve been sleeping better at night, but I am still SO tired! 

Baby is: The size of a box of Crayola Crayons (or an avocado). My sister told us that if people kept growing at the rate they do before they are born, they’d be bigger than the earth by age 5! Super crazy!

Gender: BABY BOY! I have already bought SO many things for our little dude.

Dad is: So helpful! He was sick this week and still was hopping up and down, getting me anything I need. He’s so sweet. I hope our little boy is JUST like his daddy.

Mom is craving: This week I was in love with the mashed potatoes and gravy from Thanksgiving! 

Funny things this week: We put out an Instagram poll for the gender of Baby Low, and over 75% of people thought it was a girl! We were all surprised together, but it just makes so much sense and totally fits that we are having a darling little dude.

I am 14 weeks pregnant! It feels like it’s going by SO SLOWLY and at the same time, too fast!

I wanted to share some of my favorite maternity things from the first trimester (I’ll probably also be doing a YouTube video, so stay tuned for that) and give a little bumpdate!

Symptoms: I’m still not super sick, but randomly will feel nauseous. Especially if I’m moving really fast which is ridiculous, so running and working out hard has become not possible! I have been getting some headaches but as I keep drinking water they go away pretty quickly.

Sleep: I sleep pretty well at night, but am SO tired all the time! I go to bed early and still wake up tired! They weren’t joking when they said this is exhausting work!

Baby is: The size of a troll doll or a beet! It’s crazy that it keeps getting so big! I feel like yesterday we looked at our app and baby was the size of a poppy seed. All of the limbs, organs and everything are developed, and will just keep growing bigger!

Gender: We will hopefully find out this week! Crossing our fingers that baby cooperates!

Dad is: SO EXCITED. Randy is SO sweet about the baby and every day just says he can’t wait for the baby to be here, and wishes it would come sooner. He is carrying around our little plush alien toy from Toy Story and pretending it’s the baby, practicing how to hold it and do things with only one hand hahaha.

Mom is craving: Not really anything, but it’s so strange that chocolate (my normal love) isn’t always on my mind. It’s very weird not to need a piece of chocolate during the day the way I normally would! I eat less at each meal because I start to feel too full, but still need lots of snacks between meals, which is funny. I’ve been craving sour things most of the pregnancy, acai bowls or sour gummies. There are these amazing sour dolphin gummies at a candy store in our mall that I’m OBSESSED with. I randomly craved pie crust cookies about 6 weeks in, and when we didn’t have the ingredients I started BAWLING. I also had a funny hankering for Frosted Mini Wheats that made me bawl, because I was so excited to know what sounded good!

Funny things this week: I keep thinking I feel the baby move, but Randy doesn’t believe me! Maybe I am, maybe I’m not…who knows! I’m emotional ALL the time (even more than usual) and even cried a few weeks ago when I heard a goose in the sky, all by itself. I was so worried it was looking for its family.

My first trimester loves:

I have had a few things that I LOVED during my first trimester, here they are!

This weekend was CRAZY. Friday entailed celebrating a friend’s birthday at Bombay house, a treat with my family after half of them went to see The Nutcracker, and getting to bed SUPER late.

Saturday, Randy and I went to go see The Nutcracker put on by Clytie Adams School of Ballet.

I feel like I write the same thing about this every year, but I really don’t care.

I’ll keep it short and sweet. Basically, much of my childhood and teenage years were spent in one of four little dance studios. I can’t honestly put into words what that ballet school means to me. I knew every picture on the wall. I had a spot on the little bench where I would put my things. I learned how to fail, and how to succeed. I learned that correction comes when teachers care, and that I could do things even if I wasn’t sure that I could. I learned that hard work and practice pay off.

I started out every holiday season wearing curlers to school and running around the Val Browning Center, buttoning up costumes or pinning in hairpieces.

I know nearly every step to every dance in that whole show. I know every note, every crash of the cymbal. I know the moments in dances where you gasp for breath because you are SO exhausted. I know the fear of slipping on a fog-covered floor and the loudness of the downstairs dressing room.

When Clytie came out this year and talked about those feeling nostalgia, remembering putting on their makeup and worrying they’ll someday forget the dance steps, I lost it.

I will forever be so grateful for the years I spent in those dance studios, and on stage doing something I loved. And I will forever be so insanely grateful for teachers, and Clytie, who made ballet so much more than just an extracurricular activity.

I feel like since we announced our pregnancy, life has been crazy! I have barely had a minute to think.

We had a great Halloween dressing up like John Lennon and Yoko Ono (Randy wanted to be the scariest thing he could think of – so he chose to be the woman who broke up the Beatles)

We’ve been having relaxed weekends, going to dinner with friends and having movie nights, spending lots of time with family and it’s all been awesome. I’m going to be better at regularly updating I promise!

I have been SO lucky and haven’t been feeling crazy sick with the pregnancy, which has been amazing. I have random cravings (ask Randy about the time I cried when we didn’t have ingredients for the cookies I wanted) and have been SO tired, but feeling really good and very lucky!

We are gearing up for the holiday season and can’t wait to find out the gender of Baby L!

If you know Randy, you know he’s SUCH a classy dresser. He loves shopping as much as I do and is crazy about making sure his haircut is right. One of his biggest complaints is that there aren’t enough options when it comes to men’s clothing. And he’s totally right! There just aren’t a lot of cool or interesting things to do with guys clothing. That is why he and I both LOVE places like Zuzu Wear because they are doing their part to give guys some awesome options when it comes to clothing. Their ties are seriously AWESOME and such good quality! I love that they are all about skinny ties (Randy doesn’t love regular or thick ties, because he’s so tall and skinny) and they always have cool patterns. They are really adding new dimensions and class to men’s fashion and Randy and I are huge fans. We loved partnering with them, and hope we can find more awesome places for men’s fashion that share their passion!

But just check out how good the tie (and the guy) look!

I’m sure most of you don’t care, but I want to document some pregnancy updates here on the blog.

Yesterday we got to have an ultrasound and see little baby L rub its eyes, punch me, flip around, and smile at us straight on. It is SO crazy how baby is already a little, tiny person. I can’t imagine loving anything more.

I’ve been lucky and haven’t felt too sick at all! I’ll feel nauseous at some point during most days, and I’m SO tired. But I’m feeling very lucky to not feel insanely sick most days.

Randy has been absolutely wonderful, cooking dinner and bringing flowers. He says once a day how much he wishes the baby was here already. We have a little plush toy alien (the one from Toy Story) and Randy has been carrying it around, practicing for the baby. It’s adorable!

We are feeling very happy and lucky, and so in love with our apricot-sized nugget!

We had a really fun time telling our family and close friends about baby Low!

Funny story, we were planning on telling my parents at the same time as my siblings, but of course, life got in the way! My parents are planning a trip to Europe with a group, and had to put down a deposit. They would leave a few weeks after our baby is due, and while I knew I still wanted them to go and they should go, I wanted them to have all the information before making a final decision! They were going to put down a deposit one night, and I was BAWLING because I didn’t want to tell them over the phone! Randy told me we could go there, we could FaceTime, whatever I wanted. So I just decided to call and tell them! They were SO excited and it was good I told them so they could book their trip knowing about the baby and everything like that.

I was having a family birthday party the next weekend so we wrapped up some onesies and baby shoes for me to unwrap as a gift from Randy. Our families were SO surprised, it was awesome! We also told some of our close friends at the fair after Alexon won a giant prize.

We are so lucky baby Low already has so many people to love!

Every year I try to do a series on gratitude during the month of November. Mostly it’s just me jotting down a few things I’m grateful for and not really much else. This year, I realized late last night that I was already behind. Already. Behind. On day 1.

I wanted to do something big and beautiful and worthy of celebrating for November, focusing in on this Thanksgiving and how extraordinarily lucky I am.

But I am already late.

But that’s OK.

So for this year’s series on Gratitude, I’m going to tell stories or share quotes or share something I’m grateful for. I’m not going to feel bad about being behind because this baby I’m growing makes me want to go to sleep at 8:30. I’m not going to play a million days of catch up when I do fall behind. I’m just going to be grateful for being grateful, and love this time of life I’m lucky enough to be in.

Today, I’m grateful for imperfection. We learn so much from the things that go wrong or the things we do wrong. We grow stronger, we become closer to others as we struggle together, we get to know the difference between feeling broken and feeling whole. Imperfection is beautiful and there’s a reason we are all imperfect. It’s so when we do eventually become perfect someday, we understand the difference, and we appreciate the struggle.