Girl.

I feel like I have so much too say.....but first things first........

Our baby is a GIRL! Wahoo!!! :)

We found out on Tuesday and we are so very happy!

I kind of had a vibe from the beginning that it was a girl. I even told my mom the morning I found out I was pregnant that I thought it was a girl.

Jeff is going to be the best dad to a little girl! I watch how he is with his sisters, and don't get me wrong he's likes making fun of them, but he loves all of them a lot and cares about them loads. He'll be a great father to a little girl, for sure.

I'm 99.9% that our next baby will be a girl too, so we'll have a full table ready for tea parties coming up soon!

Ha ha ha ha.

Okay....maybe that deserves an explanation.

My family has this curse.....

Maybe it's not a curse....girls are fun!

But there is this thing that I'm a part of that says I'm going to have a baby girl when I'm 26 years old.

Right now (as of yesterday!) I'm 24, so yeah, the next baby could be at 26 and according to the family "curse" it'll be a girl.

Here's why that is.......

(This is all on my mom's side of the family)

When my grandma was 13, her sister was born.

When my grandma was 26 and her sister was 13, my mom was born.

When my grandma's sister was 26 and my mom was 13, my second cousin (girl) was born.

When my mom was 26 and my second cousin (girl) was 13, I was born. (Ta Daaaa!!)

When my second cousin (girl) was 26 and I was 13, my second cousin's baby GIRL was born!

So now........

When I'm 26 and my second cousin (girl)'s baby GIRL will be 13......I will have to have a baby girl.

Get it???

Got it???

Not confusing at all??

(You're confused, huh? It's okay, go read it again or just pretend like you get it)

Basically I'm stuck in this cycle of baby girls and a whole bunch of  "when she's 26 and she's 13...".

It's a pretty weird thing we have going on.

I'll probably end up having a boy at 26, will totally break the chain, and will be the one to mix things up.....but we'll see! If you see another girl announcement in a couple of years you'll know.........

.....I don't know what you'll know.....

That my family is strange?

Or totally cool.

Anyways, apart from all of that, we are SO excited to have a little girl! At this current time. Age 24. Sorry to confuse everyone with future talk.

I've been going crazy figuring out how to decorate the nursery, it's kind of been annoying to everyone, including me. Ha ha.

I like the concept of having three colors together. Two isn't enough and four is like a rainbow, so I wanted to pick three for the baby's room. I decided on baby pink cause uh.....I'm all about being gender specific (every feminist friend I have just cringed). I don't think I'm girly girly enough to have picked purple though, so I didn't go with that color combination.

I decided on yellow and gray for the other two colors! Also, I'm kind of a huge animal lover, so it wasn't really a question if there was going to be an animal included in the theme, ha ha ha. That was just kind of a given.

I really like elephants to go along with gray, so I think that's what we are going with! Jeff has been so patient with me while I've been psychotic about figuring things out.

(Another reason he'll be a good dad to a girl, the girl will probably be like me and he handles me flawlessly. We've got this down. It'll be great.)

I found this so so so cute fabric vinyl thing for the wall and Jeff is ordering it for my birthday! Woo wooooo!

This is the website, (Baby nursery decals! ) they have tons or super cute things, especially if you like jungle animals! Their prices are pretty average, I think? They might even be on the cheaper side? I think most places price these things really expensive. 

Anyways, enough of that, we still have a little over four months till the baby gets here, so there isn't too big of a rush to have everything sorted out (except in my brain it definitely seems like a "decide now or forever wish you had" situation).

Yesterday was my birthday and I felt so much love from all the people in my life wishing me a happy birthday! I have so many people who care about me. I'm so grateful to know all of them!

Jeff took me to Taggart's Grill for dinner and I about passed out from an overload of good food. Mmmmmm.....so yummy! (Side note: Always call ahead with that place. Jeff called ahead and we were seated like 10 minutes after we walked through the door. We had about 7-8 other parties look at us like they wanted to kill us cause they probably had been waiting for 40+ minutes. That place is popular!) Everything we had, down to the artichoke dip appetizer was SOOOO delicious! I think I thanked Jeff for taking me there about 30 times alone just while we ate the appetizer, ha ha.

Okay, maybe not that many, but it was at least 26 times.

I highly recommend going there. It's one of my favorites, if not my top favorite, place to eat!

We came home and Jeff got Austenland from the Redbox for us to watch! I had seen it in theaters with my mom and sister, but Jeff had only heard things from his female coworkers about it. I LOVE that movie!! Ha ha ha ha. It's so funny, but has the right amount of romance. It's just a fantastic movie! Jeff was rolling his eyes a lot and ended up playing on his phone about half way through, but he was a trooper to fake laugh when I thought something was extra funny.

Dinner, movie, and the gifts that he got me all equal a wonderful husband who made my birthday great!

I've been thinking about something lately along the lines of having a wonderful husband. I know I talk Jeff up A LOT on this blog and make him sound like a saint, a ginormous sweetheart, a freak of nature fabulous human being.....and to me he is all of those things, but I never want it to seem like I'm trying to one up or be better than anybody that ever reads this.

I think everyone has the ability to find someone who makes them feel that way. I have quite a few close married friends that HAVE that same thing that I have. I know of many people who really do feel like their spouse is the best, and they are right.....they are the best for them.

I think that Jeff is the best....but he's the best for ME. If a single person were to read this and think..."Oh man, I want a husband like Jeff, he seems like he's the best!" They are probably wrong, cause even though he IS the best, he's the best for me, not for them! He understands me, he cares about me.......now I'm just turning into a Me Monster.

Sorry.

I really do think everyone has it in them to find someone who is the best for them. It may seem hard when you're single, or maybe you are married and have forgotten how your spouse is the best for you, but it'll come if you think about the positive.

I was writing in my journal yesterday (believe it or not there ARE more private things in my life than I would even share on this blog) and a big thing I wrote about was how I hope that I can have a very positive attitude as I go into this whole new motherhood thing.

Social media is a weird place. People post WAY too many "I didn't need to know that" kind of a things on there. Some pictures I'm seeing parents post kind of freak me out....ha ha ha, but that's besides the point.

Another thing that social media has done, has been the fact that it creates a HUGE OPEN forum for people to express themselves. They can express how much they hate their lives one minute and how much they can't get enough of their happiness the next. People say how completely in love they are with their spouse, their kids, their baby, their dog one second....and the next they wonder why the people in their lives can't do anything right.

Bipolar. Social media is bipolar.

As I enter motherhood I'm hoping to be a happy and neutral person when it comes to social media. I also hope I feel that way just in my own personal everyday life. I want my little girl to grow up in a well nurtured environment where she knows how much we love her. I've taken too many child development classes to know what happens when parents don't try to cultivate that positive attitude.

With that positive attitude I will leave you with some awesome quotes from some equally awesome apostles. :) 

"In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. . . . Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. . . .  Remember, 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven'." -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

 

"I surely know that there is no role more essential or eternal than that of motherhood." -Elder Russell M. Nelson