we would like to publicly announce...

that little baby mckinley will be born on september 30, 2009!!!

crazy, huh? i guess you could say that's why the blog posts have been somewhat sparse lately...we've had a little bit on our minds. but oh my goodness, let me just tell you that it has been incredible! here's a rundown of the past thirteen weeks: (yes, i am 13 weeks along! can you believe it? one week to go until i'm done with the entire first trimester!...sorry to those of you who are just finding out, like i said, life has been crazy.)

anyways, here's the rundown:

1. as of last week, babycenter.com said that our little baby was the size of a lime! it's amazing to me that he/she is already that big! sometimes it's hard for us to believe, because i'm not showing--at all--but we've seen our baby TWICE now, and heard its little heartbeat so i know that its in there.


2. we just told our parents within the past few weeks and everyone is SO excited! on my side of the family, baby mckinley will be grandbaby #3, and danny's parents will be looking forward to grandbaby #4. all of our siblings that have kids had girls first (and thats what i think it is...) but plenty of other people (including danny) are rooting for a little baby boy. either way, we're going to be super excited; it will be fun to find out come may!

3. as far as "morning sickness" goes, i think i'm pretty much done with that whole thing! hallelujah! i've been scared basically my whole life that i would get as sick as my mom gets (she's sick in bed pretty much the entire nine months, and throws up everything...i love her for having five kids!) but luckily i didn't get that from her. at first, i had absolutely NO energy--i'd get home from work and then crash on our bed and take a nice long nap before i had to get to class. i'd take the elevator everywhere because i didn't even have the motivation to climb up the stairs! that went on for a few weeks in february, and then the migranes started. yuckkkk. i only got a few of them, but i seriously thought i was going to die. my vision got all wacky (even more than it normally is) and my forehead felt like it was splitting in two. (sorry for such descriptiveness...) after about a week of horrible headaches i started throwing up occasionally--but ususally it only happened at night. so much for morning sickness. we found out that if i didn't eat anything after about 8:30, it was smooth sailing from there--but unfortunately, it took a while for us to figure that out. the good news is i haven't thrown up in almost two whole weeks, so i'm feeling pretty darn good about life.

4. danny has been absolutely WONDERFUL to take care of me. he works dinners around my crazy cravings and he wipes my tears everytime i feel like we are absolutely crazy for starting our family this early! he is so busy with soccer/school/teaching seminary but he always seems to make time for me and is such a great example to me of selflessness. i definitely married the perfect man for me, and i am so excited to see him with our baby! holy cow it's going to be amazing.

5. among everything else that has been going on, we are MOVING! (what a crazy life we lead...) for those of you that have been to our place on freedom blvd, its not the most baby-friendly place. you have to walk up a steep flight of stairs to get to the front door, and in the summer it stays blistering hot--at all times. from what i've heard, being hot is the last thing you want while being pregnant so we started looking since provo has the absolute worst selection of married housing. kind of ironic, huh? anyways, we found a cute little basement apartment right off of center street in provo with two bedrooms and its perfect. we have to be out by the 13th of april so this next month may be a little crazy...but i'm excited for the change.

6. lastly, all of these changes have really strengthened my testimony of the gospel of jesus christ. it is amazing to me--everything about the process of bringing a baby into this world. danny and i are definitely scared at times, but we are SO glad that we have our heavenly father to turn to in times of doubt/need/worry.

what an amazing time of life!!