It's A…..

At our last doctor's appointment, they told me that it was safe to schedule our gender ultrasound/anatomy scan. I got a little light-headed when they told me because it finally sunk in how fast time is actually flying!

We decided to surprise our families and let them think we weren't finding out until February at our 20 week appointment. 

We scheduled our ultrasound for 8:30 am on January 12th.  We arrived early and I was a bundle of nerves. 

At our previous appointment, according to my original due date by our 8 week measurement,  I was only 16 weeks and some odd days along.  But according to my LMP, the office had me at 17 weeks and a few days, which is why we went ahead and scheduled our big ultrasound.   They are normally done at 18-20 weeks. 

As we went in for the ultrasound, the ultrasound tech brought up the fact that I wasn't quite 18 weeks and they normally did them from 18-20 weeks. I was fighting the urge to cry because I just knew she was going to tell me to wait another week to get the ultrasound, but then she made the decision to go ahead and do it that day anyways.

I basically held my breathe the whole time we were in the office. 

I didn't really care what gender our baby was, as long as it was healthy. 

EVEN THOUGH, I had been thinking since day 1 that this baby was a girl.

Thankfully, the anatomy scan looked great and our baby actually measured a little further along than everyone thought, at 18 weeks and 2 days. Our due date may actually be bumped up a week, which is totally fine by me! Arkansas summers are no joke!

Oh, yeah, and our baby is a BOY!!! :)

Marley is so excited about his little buddy that's on the way!

I was shocked and it actually took me a few minutes to let it sink in after she told us. 

We got to have lots of cute pictures and he looks absolutely perfect, and not to mention, his  little side profile is very cute :) :) :)

Now we just have to decide of on a name…..no pressure….. lol!

'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!"

____________________________________________________________

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

Aaron's Birthday (5.17.12)

Aaron's 25th birthday was last Thursday. I had been asking him for weeks what he wanted to do to celebrate, or what gifts he wanted and he wouldn't give me any ideas. He just wanted to keep it "low-key".

MEN.

ugh.

I finally figured out where he wanted to eat, so I made a reservation for us at our current favorite restaurant in Rogers called Bonefish Grill. 

He didn't want any gifts, so we decided that his gift would be a much needed shopping trip to get some new clothes! I LOVE shopping, but Aaron hates it, so he usually encourages me to shop just for myself and not for him. 

BUT that is beside the point. 

First, I surprised Aaron by waking up early (that's love) and baking him his favorite, strawberry muffins. 

THEN, I surprised Aaron with a cake from Rick's Bakery. I led him on all week, making him think that I was going to just bake him a cake on his birthday since he just wanted it low-key. 

I went the week before and ordered the cake so that I would be able to pick it up during the day on the 17th. I even paid in cash so that he wouldn't see the charge on our online bank account. ;) Sneaky...

Needless to say, by the time he got home I was SO excited that I couldn't wait to show him until after dinner so I showed him right before we left for Rogers. 

He was SO surprised and SO thankful and SOO sweet. :)

I was one proud lil' wifey.


After Bonefish, we came back, had cake and watched a movie. He said it was his best birthday yet. :) Such a sweetie.

okay, I made some choc chip ones for me too...

"G'morning Sunshine"

Sneaky...

my guys

before his bday dinner

how cute is this?!

out on our deck

Happy Birthday Babe! 

-Holly