20 weeks!!

holy hannah. 
we're halfway there. 

very exciting and yet i can't shake the fear of giving birth. i just don't understand how the baby comes out. i don't think i want to understand. (even though cardon and I's nightly ritual is watching birth videos and screaming/giggling in nervousness). 

but other than that looming over my head... i can't wait till Ryder is here!! 

We celebrated Ryder's half birthday by buying a green and gray city mini jogger for him! we'll be cruisin' in style this fall :) and of course we wrapped up the birthday festivities by eating some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. our favorite. 

i love knowing that Ryder can hear the outside world! i love calling Cardon during the day and putting the phone close to my stomach on speaker so Ryder can hear. Cardon always says "Hi baby Ryder! I love you!" so sweet. Cardon will be an awesome dad. 

Baby Updates:

• Ryder is now 10 inches long and weighs 10 1/2 ounces (about the length of a banana)
• He gulps down several ounces of amniotic fluid every day, for nutrition, digestion and to practice swallowing/breathing. 
• his taste buds work!
• he can cover his ears if noises are too loud and can even jump if a noise startles him :)

he's so talented :) 

Peas vs. Pumpkins and a Mango

Yesterday we had a doctors appointment. Cardon and I were somewhat nervous because this was the appointment where we would find out if Ryder is growing strong and healthy or if something may be wrong...

Ryder is definitely a healthy boy!! :) 

"Your baby is big" those were the first words our doctor told us.  He explained I might be farther along than we all thought or Ryder will just be a big boy. I chuckled to myself and said "well yeah.. he's just taking after his dad." (Cardon is 6'5)

Dr. Izu responded "That's true. If you plant peas, you'll get peas. If you plant a pumpkin, you'll get a pumpkin" haha love it.

guess we're having a pumpkin. (seems appropriate since he's due in October)

but as of right now (19 weeks) baby Ryder is just the size of a mango (6 inches long, 8 1/2 ounces). He's starting to sprout hair on his cute little head and research says: he can now hear ev-er-y-thing. how crazy is that?! 

(baby Ryder is soo much cuter than this cartoon baby) 

18 1/2 weeks!

I am now 18 1/2 weeks and little Ryder is the size of a sweet potato. He spends his time yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching and sucking his thumb :) i can only feel him sometimes and it is the best! I love him so much already. We both do. 

definitely a boy :)

such a sweet little face...i melt

Ryder :)

boy oh boy! :) all this talk about "its hard to get pregnant" is a bunch of b-o-l-o-g-n-a in our case. i went off birth control pretty early because it was making me looney-bin crazy. literally. i hate birth control. as soon as I went off of it i felt back to my old self. Cardon was happy too :) so we had the mentality of whatever happens happens because it takes a while to get pregnant, right? errr. wrong! it can happen pretty fast actually. in fact, I think Cardon and I just held hands and I got pregnant. but we wouldn't have it any other way! in retrospect i'm glad birth control made me crazy, i'm glad we decided to throw it away, because now we are expecting our baby boy and we are beyond thrilled!! 

Let's go back to January/February-ish when I found out I was pregnant...I took the pregnancy test at home after work and stared at it on the counter haha. Didn't take long at all to see those two blue lines...POSITIVE! all sorts of emotions hit me at once. haha. 

and I immediately thought "how am i going to tell Cardon?" so i googled "ways to tell your husband you're pregnant" and everything that came up was either dumb or way too extravagant! like make a t-shirt and wear it when he comes home saying "you're going to be a dad!" yeah...i didn't have time for that. so I decided to just put the pregnancy test on the table and wait for him to see it. Now you have to know Cardon... love him to pieces but he is not the most observant fella :) After a good solid 10 minutes of him being home (which felt like an eternity) I knew he wasn't going to notice it unless I made it completely obvious. So i asked Cardon to fill up my glass of water which was right by the test. He did. and nothing. I asked him to turn on the lamp which again was right by the test. He did. and again nothing. So i asked him a THIRD TIME to go back to the table and hand me my book. Finally! He saw the test and with a huge grin said "what does this mean??!" i said "its positive!" Which cued instant excitement and numerous phone calls to family. 

Bringing you up to speed....

boy meets girl.
 boy is smooth and charismatic.
 girl is reserved yet smitten.
 They fell in love and lived happily ever after.






Met - December 2011

First official date / kiss - April 2012

Engaged at El Matador State Beach - August 2012

Married in the LDS Los Angeles Temple - November 2012 

Expecting our first baby boy RYDER - October 2013