Lucky 13 & a Cold

I reached my 13 week of pregnancy mark on Dec. 13th, which was also my birthday. 

We had our church Christmas program the same day.

Oh, and also our Sunday school class Christmas party.

We had a full day, which, in all honesty, is fine with me. The "older" I get, the less I care about making my birthday a big to-do. I actually don't know if I've ever really wanted a huge fuss over my birthday. Probably because that's how my family has always treated birthdays.  They are special days, where you definitely feel loved, but it's no parade with fireworks. 

And I'm fine with that. 

Back to Sunday,

We had our Christmas program at church. The day before, my mom had bought us all tickets for The Living Christmas Tree at First Baptist in Little Rock.  It was fantastic and I'm glad that most of our family (minus Logan and Morgan- boo to finals!) was able to come and enjoy it together.  I teared up a couple times - it doesn't take much lately - but the choir was SO good. I am a sucker for the old Christmas classics.

We ate at Chuy's (my pick) after the show.  My dad was the only one that had never been there and I do believe that he enjoyed himself. ;)

My baby brother Clark had to go back to OBU after dinner because he had to study for finals coming up, and when he told me to have a happy birthday and that he'd see me soon, I had to quickly say goodbye because I almost lost it again in the parking lot. 

baby brother

These pregnancy hormones, YALL :| 

Oh, yeah….our Christmas program. 

I think it went well, despite my husband saying that a few of the songs were a little long (insert eye-roll here). We had several testimonies shared…they were tear-jerkers….and I'm not just saying that because I am hormonal, because even grown men in the church were wiping their eyes. 

I was a hot mess by the time the second service ended. A HOT MESS.

I'm sure the video will be attractive LOL!

That afternoon, we had our SS class Christmas party. It's always fun to get together with that group. The only "negative" thing is that our class has grown so much in the past few months, that is hard for me to remember everyones name and what they do and which kid belongs to which family.  I blame pregnancy brain… I think it's a real thing. But our party went well, we played dirty santa/white elephant, and ate some delicious food.

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Monday morning rolled around and I did not feel good, but I went to work anyway.

Monday evening came and I was miserable. 

I had "caught" a cold. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were not pretty days. I decided to call into work on Thursday because I felt like I did not need to go in sneezing and with a hacking cough when I have to work with sick babies. SOME people I work with don't care about that, because either they don't want to miss work or they simply can't afford to miss work. But it still irks me because I feel like everyone is just passing it from one person to the next.

But I digress…

As I'm typing this, it's Friday. I work Sat-Mon and so I am praying that I can just make it through the next three days without getting worse and hopefully all this sinus mess will finally go away. I am already feeling like I can almost breathe normally again, so here's to getting well!

I hope the {few} that read this are staying happy and healthy this week!

'Tis the Season,

Holly

12 weeks & a tiny heart beat!

December 10th was our 12 week appointment.

I've been a nervous wreck because ever since I woke up at the start of week 11, my symptoms have decreased significantly. Most people would be rejoicing, but this little momma-to-be is a worrier and so I have fretted a bit. 

We showed up to our morning appointment and I just knew my BP would be high because for about a week and a half, I had been worrying and praying that everything was okay.

It wasn't high, it was perfect!

Our doctor popped in and basically said this would be one of the quicker appointments and that she would be using a doppler ultrasound to listen for the heartbeat.

I held my breath and she searched for what seemed like several minutes, when in reality it was probably just a few seconds.

We heard that precious, tiny, strong heartbeat and I about lost it on the exam table. :')

this was right after we got to hear the heartbeat

I even got the hubs to take a video on his phone, just so I can listen to our baby's heartbeat whenever I want. Best decision ever.

Baby had a heart rate of 150 and it was nice and strong. I'm feeling better than I have in weeks!

We are very blessed!

'Tis the Season, 

Holly

Our {little} Secret: Part 2

Once we went to the doctor for our 8 week appointment on Nov. 12th, we decided to plan to tell our parents the following weekend.

I ordered this SUPER CUTE onesie on Etsy, paid extra to have it rush delivered, and we (mainly me) racked our brains on how we should tell everyone.

I'm sharing the picture again because, I MEAN!

Coming from larger families, we knew that getting everyone together at the same time was not a real option.

We told my family on a Friday night. A few days before our appointment, I got online and did some "research" (my husband's favorite word) and found an adorable book for new grandparents, called "The Gifts of Being Grand."  So I ordered two and had them rush delivered.

My family does a Thanksgiving tree and it's been a tradition for years.  We have colorful, contraction paper leaves and we write various things we are thankful for every year.  So I dug around in our office, found some red construction paper, and made a leaf and wrote Baby Nicholson on it.  I stuck that in a box with our ultrasound picture and then the box in a bag with the book.

Late that night, after we had been over at their house visiting for a while, I stepped out into the garage to grab the bag that we had stashed before we walked in.

I made my family (Dad, Mom, & Joshua) sit on the couch together and asked them to open the box first, before pulling the other gift (the book) out of the bag.  My mom was SHOCKED, Joshua was speechless, and my dad….well…bless him.  I believe his first words were "Oooohhh noooo…." but not in a negative matter, just a totally shocked, never saw it coming way. Or so we think ;)

We told Aaron's family the following morning. When his mom opened the box with the ultrasound picture, she immediately started bawling, as did his sister, and his dad walked over, over-alls and all (you just have to know him) and he said "Well it appears you have a bun in the oven!"

Later that day, we told my baby brother Clark, who had come home from college for the weekend.

The next day, Aaron told his two brothers, and we face-timed brother Logan and my SIL Morgan, and I walked over to the Thanksgiving tree, where we had put up the leaf, and we laughed about some of the leaves that somehow make it back up on the tree every year, and then I casually focused on the Baby Nicholson leaf.

We called our grandparents in the following days and everyone was SO thrilled and SO surprised.

We decided to make our announcement early, after we got a chance to tell some more family and some of our close friends. Considering that we didn't really trust some of our family members to keep it a secret for very long, I think it was a good decision. I am very happy we announced early.

I was so tickled at the outpouring of love and kind words that were showed to us during those first few days. I may have cried a couple times (I DID).

'Tis the Season,

Holly

First comes LOVE...

(This post has been a few months in the making. I know I should have written it at the time everything was happening, but hey, life gets busy!)

"Aaron and Holly sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

First comes LOVE.

Then comes MARRIAGE.

(then comes a few years to enjoy said marriage…)

THEN comes a BABY in a baby carriage!"

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I feel like life as a young adult is just a constant ache/rush/longing/pressured feeling to get to "the next stage of life." 

Whatever that stage may be.

Aaron and I got marriage fairly young, he had just turned 24 and I was 22. But we were in love and we were ready. I mean, we dated all those years. 

It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong (don't, I'm not), but when you are in a serious relationship, everyone wants to know if and when you will get married. 

But then there's a new level of annoyance. Once you are married, people start asking when you plan to start a family.  I believe the first of those questions began right after we returned from our honeymoon. No joke. I think it was my grandparents ;) BLESS.

My mom likes to say, "people mean well" and most of the time I can agree with her. 

Aaron and I have talked about babies since high school. How we hoped they would look like us and what our house would look like.

We've talked about babies for 4.5 years now. Adding to and changing our (ever-changing) list of baby names, what sports they might play, schools, where we might want to raise them, but how we weren't quite ready for them. (I can say that the pressure to actually have a baby increases rapidly each year you are married, from SOME people (it's not your life, folks!), but not ALL people. That's another rant for another day.)

But, we've only REALLY talked about babies for the past several months.  When was the right time to start trying, what about insurance, where would we live, would we have family close, what about new/bigger cars, etc? 

One day my sweet, wonderful, loving, crazy, dreamer of a husband looked at me and told me he thought it was the right time. So we talked about it some more and prayed about it and decided to just see what happened. 

I took a pregnancy test the morning of October 9th, 2015. That was the day we had planned to go look at a car for me (see previous pos: thttp://tistheseasontobeholly.blogspot.com/2015/12/rainfall-scratches-and-growing-up.html). It had been a little while, well a little while is relative, I should say it had been an appropriate amount of time and I thought that if, by chance, it was positive, we could celebrate that day since he already had the day off work and we were going to be together all day.

It was negative. 

I was surprised (at myself) how it actually took me a few minutes to compose myself and to go tell Aaron the news. My first and only pregnancy test I had ever taken was negative, which I knew there was a 50/50 chance it would be, but it REALLY bummed me out.  We knew there was an obvious chance that it could take a while to get pregnant, but just seeing the little word on the stick bummed me out for a few days. 

Thankfully, my awesome husband was encouraging and I was able to bounce back to my old self and change my mind set. Still praying and trusting God through the process.

October 21st rolled around. I had been feeling a little sick to my stomach the past couple of days and I told my husband that I was going to take another test and if it was negative, I was going to the Dr because I believed that I had caught some "bug"(there's always something going around) at the hospital. So the morning of the 21st rolled around, Aaron left for work, and I worked up the nerve to take another pregnancy test. 

I left the bathroom and went into the kitchen to fix breakfast for myself and turned on the TV. Several minutes went by before I could muster the courage to walk back into the bathroom. 

When I finally did and the screen said POSITIVE, I kind of flipped out. My poor dog could not figure out what was going on! (He still can't figure out what's going on actually)

I kept the secret ALL day because I wanted to tell Aaron face to face, but I didn't think that I should tell him he needed to come home early or anything.  We even had dinner with one of our couple friends and I was proud of myself for not slipping up in front of them.  

Once we finally got home, we decided to watch a little tv before we went to bed for the night.  I was just sure my face was going to give me away, but I told him I'd be right back and went and got the pregnancy test.  I was on the verge of (happy) tears, so instead of melting into a puddle in front of him by trying to be cute or clever, I just handed him the test.

The look on his face will be one of my favorite memories. :) We were so excited and in our prayers that night we thanked God for our little blessing.

:) we are VERY blessed

Tis the season!

-Holly