The Reveal...

Well, I am still waiting on my cake, but we are going to wait till this weekend and do the cake reveal with Matt's brothers, SIL and their kids. We did however, tell our parents. The main reason we broke down early before the cake was that my aunt and uncle from South Carolina (the ones we just visited) were home this weekend and we had an impromptu family cookout with my parents and both sets of aunts and uncles. They had been bugging us since we found out so I made cupcakes on Sunday and used food coloring to change the color of some of the batter. Then last night we told Matt's parents. So without further ado, peanut is a....

                                                                          GIRL!!!!!!

I will say this did come as a surprise because I fully was expecting boy while secretly kind of hoping for a girl. Matt was very shocked and I think a little scared because he hasn't been around little girls that much besides the nieces. I think he is also worried how quickly she will have him wrapped around her little finger =) Names have been discussed but nothing set in stone.

I do have a special request, my friend J, who is the one that told me about Dr. S had her last IUI. This is her last chance at getting pregnant due to age so please say a little prayer, keep your fingers crossed for her, thanks!

Lastly, congratulations to some bloggy friends who have had some awesome news this past week with positive beta's and positive tests!

So....

Everything was great at the appointment today. Peanut is measuring at 20w1d and is weighing in at 12oz. All the tests have come back normal and my blood pressure is good. We do know what we are having, however, the bakery where I wanted to order my gender reveal cake won't be able to make the cake till next week. So you will all have to wait in anticipation =)

Time is a flyin'

Holy cow I have been bad about blogging although I have tried to stay caught up with everyone.

Vacation was nice. It was just nice to get away and relax and have to be anywhere or worry about anything. We did end up in Charleston for the day and my inner nerdy self was so excited. Although we didn't have a chance to do all the historical things I wanted too we did get to the ocean and to the slave market. We also stopped and ate at 2 of the restaurants that had been on Diners Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network. The first place was a converted gas station and we just appetizers there but the 2nd place was called The Tattooed Moose. It was such a little hole in the wall but the food was so good. I had a Cuban with smoked pork, Matt had a smoked brisket and my cousin's wife had a grilled cheese with bacon. We split an order of fries that were fried in duck fat. It sounds weird but was very very good.

After vacation life has been kind of hectic at work with meetings and gearing up for harvest which will probably start earlier than normal due to the dry weather. We are luckier than most but it still isn't pretty.

On another note, I caved and we ordered a pontoon boat. Well, a big reason I caved was because he parent's will be paying for most of it. As bad as it sounds, we now get a boat without having to fork over tons of money. So we are getting the boat on Wednesday and going camping/boating this weekend!

Whew that was a lot of catching up to do. My brain has been a tad scattered though as we get closer and closer to our appointment on Thursday to see Peanut. Eek can't believe I am 20 weeks. Time sure is flying by!!

My Heart is Breaking...

(This post was started about 3 weeks ago when everything went down but I just haven't had the heart to finish it because I thought maybe things had settled down but sadly they have not)

for Matt. When we are young we all dream about what we want to be when we grow up. Some of us may still be trying to figure it out but for Matt it has never changed. From early on he knew he wanted to be a farmer. He loved working with his hands, seeing what your hard work can produce and the satisfaction that he would get to do it again next year. Now being a mechanic also came like second nature to him and since a farmer has to wear many hats, being a mechanic seemed perfect.

Fast forward to now where he does own some land of his own but the big chunk of the farm still belongs to his grandpa and his grandpa gets 50% and Matt and his dad each get 25%. The trust is set up so that when his grandpa passes away whoever is farming the land has first dibs on it at a predetermined price. Anyways back in June when we had that storm the barn roof was damaged. Not damaged beyond fixing, just needing a new roof. Well his grandpa decided (in my opinion) that it was better to pocket the insurance money than to fix the barn and told Matt and his dad that they need to get rid of all the cattle. Now there were some older cows that probably did need to go and those didn't tear Matt up as much as the load he took last week that had the young cows along with some fresh heifers. When he came home it took everything he had to not break down. The hurt in his eyes was gut wrenching. It was the same look in his eyes when all of this started going down and he did break down and cry. I don't know about you guys but Matt never cries. He might get upset but when there are tears it must be bad.

Now my opinion on the situation is that there are 7 kids in his dads family and out of the 7 kids his dad is the oldest. I think some of the other kids are jealous because they feel that Matt and his dad are getting more from Grandpa than they are. His grandpas 2nd wife also passed away in January I believe so he has no one to occupy his time and has become basically unbearable. This is the main reason that I HATE family farms. I have seen more families broke up over ground than is really necessary because at the end of the day it is just dirt.

Whew it feels a lot better to get that all off my chest. I debated on whether to post about it or not and I knew facebook was not going to be the place because people that air their dirty laundry on facebook is a huge pet peeve of mine.

On a happy note, my blood pressure did return to normal and vacation is only 2 days away!

MIA

Don't worry I am still here. We had our county fair last week and I have been busy getting ready for that the past two weeks. Back to normal today until next Tuesday when we leave for South Carolina. A nice vacay just relaxing poolside at my Aunt and Uncle's.

So I had my 16 week checkup during the fair. Not really the best week to check my blood pressure which was up. The Dr. was concerned but my bottom number was still in the normal range so I go back tomorrow to get it checked again. He did start me on some low dose medicine so hopefully it doesn't get any worse. I'm trying not to worry because that will only make things worse.  However, hearing the heartbeat never gets old =) and it was nice and strong at 155!

On another note, holy cow I'm 16 weeks! Only 4 short weeks and we get to find out if peanut is a pebbles or bam bam. It still feels surreal at times to think that in January our lives will change forever. I did have plenty of offers of babysitters during the fair next year for me. It also made my heart melt to see just how excited my parents are to be grandparents. Not to say they haven't been excited before because they have been but to see them talk to people about it made me smile. I will update tomorrow after my checkup.

Facebook Official

So yesterday, I took the plunge and made the pregnancy facebook official. As dumb as it sounds it was kind of a scary thing because once it is out there, there is no taking it back. This is how we did it.

 

The photographer was our photographer who did our wedding and she lives in our town and I LOVE her. We had a whole photo shoot and if you want to see the whole shoot the website is-

www.photographybyluann.com and along the top click on view proofs. You have to put your email address in but that is it. We took the pictures about 2 weeks ago thanks to the idea I got from pinterest. We haven't told all of Matt's extended family and we are going to be sending some a postcard telling them the news. The pictures were taken at Matt's parents house back by the barn.

My camera battery has died so until I find my charger I can't upload pictures from our weekend but let me tell you, it was a blast. It was so nice to get away and just relax. I will talk more about that when I get some pictures. 

Gettin the heck out of dodge

Matt and I are heading to his brothers house for the weekend. He lives on the eastern side of Ohio on the Ohio River. They have 2 boys, Brady and Owen who are much better than they used to be. Think major brats! We are renting a pontoon boat tomorrow among other things =) there will be plenty of pictures when I get back. Have a great weekend!!