You make beautiful things...

So today Ive been thinking a lot about change. Not in the typical life is constantly changing kind of way or how we never stay in the same place for long and how we never seem to know exactly where we are going next. Not in the constant state of growth kind of way. Not any of that. But in the way that this is exactly how God designed for it to be. His design is ever changing. And its beautiful...

Every aspect of God's creation is changing. The seasons come and the seasons go. The flowers bloom, knowing that their life is short and that their beauty is fleeting. And the next time that they bloom, their entire identity will be different than it was today. New life is born, new life grows, that life is ever changing. Because God designed it that way. Nothing in this world is constant. Except for my God. He never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever and his creation is truly a masterpiece. The ocean stops at a line, butterflies don't fly, they dance. The sunset is his artwork that he put on display each evening. He creates life that only he could create.

As God's most precious creation is growing inside of me, I can't help but think of the aw and wonder that is God's art of change. Not one day since this miracle has been in existence has it been constant. Each aspect of this little person is a miracle. And those miracles change each and every day. The pulls and the tugs. The tumbles and the aches. There is a miracle dancing inside of me. A living breathing miracle that only I can feel. And its always changing. And its beautiful...

Like a song in the rain. Like a melody that only I can hear. God's design is displayed in me. He make's beautiful things....

Until next time...

Bumpdate: Week 14

Sorry for the delay people!! It has been a very busy week and a half. I know Im posting week 14 at the beginning of week 15, but forgive me this once. I will do my best to be more prompt in the future :)

How far along? 14.5 weeks 

Total weight gain: 7.5 lbs

Maternity clothes? The maternity clothes are still in full swing and I officially have a bump. Nice round little Merv. All normal clothes, including t-shirts, are mostly all too tight, give or take a few, and none of my normal pants fit anymore. According to the doctor this week my weight gain is right on track so I dont have any excess weight gain and Merv is growing rediculously well.

Sleep: I have slept really well again this week. I still get up occasionally to pee, but other than that I have been sleeping really well. We got me a Snoogle pregnancy pillow this week too so I have learning to sleep with that so rolling over on my stomach hasnt been as difficult this week. I have been having a lot of spy related dreams though. I think that has more to do with the fact that Nic and I have been watching White Collar before we go to bed at night and thats all things spy and awesome related, so I think the spy dreams have everything to do with our current obsession and less to do with Merv. But if Merv is secretly a spy in there and is preparing me for the awesomeness of the future, then so be it.  
New this week: Im really really tired. I have been tired the whole 14 and some change weeks but but this week especially I have been napping a lot more and the naps last longer than they have in the past haha. Other than that, everything is pretty much the same as last week. 

Best moment this week: We got to hear Merv's heartbeat for the first time. Coolest, most blind blowing experience of my life. We didnt get a sonogram yet, but we will the first week of October, which will also be our gender scan, so thats awesome, but dude hearing that heart beat was so amazing. The doctor also said that we have a little tumbler ninja baby in there. As soon as she pressed on my stomach with the doppler, Merv kicked her right where she pushed. And she could hear how active and rolly Merv was being the whole time she was measuring the heart rate. Proof that this kid is mine and Nic's for sure haha. The heart rate measured in at 154 which according to the old wive's tales means its a girl, but I guess we will see soon.

Miss Anything? Not really this week. Im pretty happy with my life at the moment. I miss Ash. Does that count? 

Food cravings: This week it was honey BBQ boneless wings from Applebees and bakes potatoes. And cereal. All of which Im good with haha so thats what we got me this weekend and we have been stocked up on cereal so that hasnt been an issue. Particularly granola cereal with Almond Milk. I went through 2 boxes in like 4 days. Bad I know. But hey, I keep it down and it tastes good and its organic. And Nic helped, so I didnt eat that much by myself. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Still smells. This week it is the smell of humus. Cant handle it at all. And the smell of my lotion still gets me everytime. I put it on right before bed and then just go to sleep so that I dont have to think about or handle the smell at all. It seems to be working for me. 

Wedding rings on or off? On! 

Looking forward to: Feeling Merv move. I really can't wait for that. According to the research Ive done, with first time pregnancies you may not feel any movement at all until week 23 but for most it happens between 15 and 19 so I am just waiting patiently to feel that little life inside of me move around. 

And thats the bumpdate! 

Bumpdate: Week 13

How far along? 13.5 weeks 

Total weight gain: 6 lbs

Maternity clothes? I am now wearing pretty much all things maternity. Yoga pants are even starting to feel uncomfortable. My wonderful parents bought me two pairs of maternity jeans for my birthday which are rediculously comfortable. Never thought I would ever say that I prefer maternity jeans to regular jeans, but I am proudly saying that today. I love those jeans. Maternity tops are also starting to look cute instead of unfitting. Which is nice. My bump is officially a bump. Nothing huge or impressive, but people can straight up tell that I am pregnant not chubby haha. its actually kind of nice. 

Sleep: I have slept rediculously well this week. I sleep on average 6 hours before I get up to pee, and honestly I think that the waking up at 6:45 every single morning could also have something to do with the fact that Nic is working now. I am always paranoid that he will not wake up on time and by that time the light is coming in the windows so I always check my phone and by the time the actual time registers in my mind, I realize I have to pee haha. So I think thats whats going on there. 
New this week: Im not sick anymore!!! I get some nausea at random times, or if I eat too much, but I am hoping and praying that the full days of laying perfectly still feeling like complete and total crap are over. 

Best moment this week: Getting my diaper bag! I have had my eye on the Make a Change Baby Bag by Vera Bradley since the very first time that Nic and i had a pregnancy scare in December and I started looking at stuff to try and be excited haha and I have dragged Nic into the Vera store at the South Hills Mall every time we have been there since we have moved here to look at that bag. So last night after we went out to dinner for my Birthday, my parents and Nic and I all went to the mall for me to return something and to spend my birthday money from my Aunt and Uncle and my brother. We ended up in the Vera store and they just happened to have my bag in the exact pattern I was looking for. I picked a pattern that is very pastel and just looks like a baby bag. Its perfect. So I was completely prepared to pay full price but I went up the register and the pattern that I chose was one of the patterns that they were retiring which got me a 30% discount and I mentioned it was birthday which got me another 30% off. I ended up getting that bag for the same price as the cheap bags at Babies "R" us. It made my day.

Miss Anything? Being able to wear normal clothes. I never realized how much I enjoyed looking cute haha. But Ill be back to normal cute looking clothes soon enough. 

Food cravings: Still changes daily. Ice cream is consistent haha. But Im starting to get my appetite back which is awesome. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Still smells. And the smells that bug me change every day. Last night we discovered that I can't handle the smell of the new lotion we just bought me to help avoid stretch marks. Awesome. I know. 

Wedding rings on or off? On! 

Looking forward to: Still our 14 week appointment. We should get a sonogram this time, and we will get to hear the heartbeat and see our little Merv. We are so excited about that!! 

And thats the bumpdate! 

Bumpdate: Week 12

How far along? 12 weeks 

Total weight gain: 6 lbs

Maternity clothes? I have officially started wearing maternity pants. Im still wearing most of my regular blousy shirts at this point but a few of the maternity tops have started making their way into my regular wardrobe. My bump is noticeable at this point, but still not quite big enough that the maternity tops look cute yet. We are definitely getting there though. 

Sleep: Still depends on the night. I still get up fairly often to go to the bathroom, but this week the more frustrating night time experience lately has been learning to not sleep on my stomach. No matter how I fall asleep I still wake up fairly often on my stomach and flip myself over. 
New this week: My tummy is starting to feel heavy. Like rolling over in the middle of the night it feels heavy under me as I turn over. Its a strange feeling.

Best moment this week: I slept through the night for the first time in 8 weeks this week. It was a truly glorious feeling. I slept from about 12:30 until 7:30 without getting up. It was so amazing to wake up feeling rested. Im looking forward to the end of this week when the second trimester moves in and little Mervin moves up and I can use the bathroom every hour instead of every 20 minutes haha. 

Miss Anything? Being able to eat 3 meals a day and not feel sick in between. I think the hardest thing has been not being able to just eat when I am hungry and that be it. I have found that if I get hungry at all I get sick, and then I have to eat even if I feel sick which makes it super hard. 

Food cravings: Still changes daily. I havent had anything really consistent. We just usually make a trip to the store whenever I figure it out. Today its spaghetti so the pot of sauce on the stove downstairs is smelling absolutely amazing right now. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Random smells. Like today it was the smell of our bedroom. Doesnt smell any different than yesterday, but made me gag hardcore. Yesterday it was the smell of the refrigerator. Not sure what was in there but I couldnt open it. So smells. Smells make me sick.

Wedding rings on or off? On! 

Looking forward to: Our 14 week appointment. We should get a sonogram this time, and we will get to hear the heartbeat and see our little Merv. We are so excited about that!! 

And thats the bumpdate! 

Bumpdate: Week 9

So with the fact that this blog was created to keep our family both near and far up to date on the goings on in our life, I have decided to do weekly Bumpdates for the family to make sure that everyone knows how baby Mervin is doing and what the bump is looking like from week to week. So welcome to the first bumpdate and Im really looking forward to sharing this crazy new journey with you all :)

How far along? 9 weeks 

Total weight gain: 3 lbs

Maternity clothes? Well, I can't button my pants. So thats always fun. Yoga pants, dresses and BeBands have become my very best friends. Although, I did score on a bunch of maternity clothes from a neighbor of my parents that had a her baby a month ago and most of them were never worn with the tags still on them. $750 worth of maternity clothes for $200? Ill take it. 

Sleep: It depends on the night. I average a bathroom break every 3 hours throughout the night haha but I usually fall right back to sleep. Sleeping on my belly has gotten uncomfortable. It feels kind of like Im sleeping on a balloon. So I have been trying to learn how to sleep on my side which is taking some adjusting. 

Best moment this week: I had a sonogram earlier this week to make sure that everything was progressing okay because of a little bit of spotting during week 4, and I got to see baby Mervin for the first time. Mervin is nothing more than a spot on a screen, but they found a heart rate, gave us a measurement and a due date, so it was by far the best moment of the pregnancy thus far. 

Miss Anything? Not feeling sick. haha. I know that being sick means that they baby is growing and becoming more and more awesome every day, but this constant feeling like i have the flu is a little claustrophobic. 

Movement: Nope. 

Food cravings: Changes daily. And its always random and odd. French fries have been consistent. But after yesterday being the hardest day as far as sickness goes (Thank you pregnancy migraine) I am on a flu like diet for a while. Dry cereal, popsicles, you know, the food that tastes oh so good haha

Anything making you queasy or sick: Everything haha. My mom says that I am blessed because it comes and goes but Im really annoyed. haha. But its gunna be worth it. 

Wedding rings on or off? On! 

Looking forward to: 2 things. 1. Making our public announcments! Our pictures are so stinking cute! and 2. Not being sick anymore so that I can truly enjoy what is happening in this magical part of our lives. But luckily 3 more weeks and we should be heading towards no more sick! Im really really looking forward to that. 

The Big Unveiling.

Okay so it has been an insane two weeks, but the promised posts are coming your way. Tonight, Im gunna tell you all the story of how I found out about Baby Morris and how I told Nicolas our big news.

So during the month of June, Nic spent two weeks away with the Marine Corps for his annual training, and I finished out the dance season and then spent 10 days in PA with my family. During recital weekend I noticed that I was extremely tired and that I couldnt suck my stomach in for pictures, but I didnt really think too much into it. So the first four days went by and I noticed that I was late for my monthly lady times but it was only by a day and that isnt super unusual, so I went about my day and didnt really think about it again. But the next morning there were still no signs of lady times, so I decided to take a home test just to put my mind at ease.

PAUSE

Now just let me insert this small piece of information for all you people out there who have never had to pee on a home pregnancy test before. Usually when you pee on the stick it takes at least a full minute for the test to register, but usually closer to three solid minutes before the test is definitive. Please keep this information in mind as I continue this lovely story.

UNPAUSE

So I was heading in to shower and get ready to head down to the daycare to work for my mom, and I decided so that I didnt go crazy sitting there thinking about what the results would say, I would pee on the stick, and then get in the shower and check the results when I got out. So I peed on the stick, set it down on the counter, turned around and turned the water on and turned back around to put my wedding rings on the counter and I saw this...

No sugar coating. No pretty pink lines or crosses. Nothing. Just the word PREGNANT. Bold and in my face. Im pregnant. And the results literally showed up in 10 seconds flat. So I hyperventilated a little. Then I smiled a little. Then I grabbed the stick, ran into my moms room, jumped on her bed and proceeded to poke her and tell her to wake up repeatedly. She grunted at me a little and fell back to sleep, so I poked her again, and put the stick in front of her face and said "Look at this!" She then freaked out, couldnt read it because she didnt have her glasses. Once she finally saw what it said, she looked at me and smiled the biggest smile I think I have ever seen and hugged me tight. I then proceeded to start crying because we werent expecting this right now, and then I started giggling and then I stopped breathing momentarily and then I giggled some more. 

After the initial shock of it all, then came the fun of figuring out how to tell Nic. He was away and busy with the Marines and I really just couldnt bring myself to tell him over the phone so I decided to keep it quiet until he got back and tell him in person. I still had a week before he was coming home from AT so keeping that secret was definitely tough, but I made it through. I played through a bunch of different ideas before deciding on how exactly I would tell him. So here's the story behind it...

A few months back, Nic and I were walking through target and we walked past the baby section. He spotted this onsie that had the phrase, "I was born ready" on it and he freaked out a little. I guess when he was a little kid his dad used to say that to him all the time and it made him so happy. We werent pregnant at the time, nor did we intend on being pregnant any time in the near future, but the next day I went back and bought the onsie and hid it so that sometime in the far away future, I could use it as part of my telling him that Baby Morris was on the way. Tricky part about this super sweet awesome idea was that the onsie was in Virginia Beach and I was in Pennsylvania. So my dearest and bestest friend Ash went on a stealth mission into our apartment and found the onsie and mailed it to me. So then I added some sweet cute touches to it. I made him a Welcome Home Daddy card, and attached a sock (inside joke from HIMYM) and a pee test, which was test number 2 because the dumb digital ones disappear after a day and that pee test showed up just as fast as the first test did. haha oh my life. The finished product looked like this :)

So Nic got back to Virginia Beach before I did, so he ended up picking me up from the airport and we shared a lovely drive home, with me hiding my biggest secret ever from him the whole way home. Once we got home, he was insisting on ordering food before he opened his gift and I just seriously could not wait to tell this major secret that I had been hiding for over a week from him. So he finally gave in and let me give him his present. He sat down to open it and reached inside and he pulled the pee stick off first without pulling the rest of the gift out of the bag. His face was priceless. I think he just stopped breathing for a little minute and just stared at it. So I pulled the rest of the gift out of the bag and handed it to him and a huge smile spread across his face. It was seriously the sweetest moment of our entire relationship. Nothing will ever compare to that moment I dont think. It was a moment of realizing that we had created a miracle and nothing in this life could change that feeling. Nothing. 

Also, just for future reference, we refer to baby bump as Mervin, until we know what we are having. There is a story behind it, but thats for me and Nic to keep between us :) So when you here us referring to baby Mervin, you know who it is we are talking about. 

So thats how it happened folks. The finding out and the telling of our biggest secret ever :) It was an adventure to say the least :) I loved every minute of it. 

At this beginning of this next week I am going to start doing some fun new pregnancy stuff so be on the lookout for the new stuff!!! 

I am 11 weeks and 6 days along with Baby Mervin and Im loving every minute of it. 

Until next time...

The Big Morris Moment.

It has been a quiet month on the blog front. Or, well, not really. There has been a lot of writing happening all which are nicely saved in draft form on this beautiful blog that keeps us connected with most of the world.

So big changes happening in the Morris household lately. As most of you know by now, we moved from Virginia Beach to Pittsburgh this past weekend. It was a quick decision made in the last month with a lot of prayer and complete trust that God is going to do what he has said he is going to do. We packed up our house, and with the help of some really awesome friends, we said goodbye to our first married home and all of the memories made there, we made the drive to PA, put most of our stuff in storage and are settling in for the next great Morris adventure.

What most people do not know is the reason for this next great adventure. There is some big news happening on the home front that we have anxiously been waiting to share with you all. Baby Morris is on the way! We found out mid June that we are expecting our first in February of 2014. Completely unexpected but so so wonderful in every way. We made the decision to relocate to be closer to my family and to be able to use my own doctors. We feel that this is where God has us for this season in our lives and we are so excited to see what he does next. We are looking forward to getting plugged into New Life, and becoming our own little family. Its going to be a great season.

I will take the time to write out the story of finding out and telling Nic and everything in between as well as adding some awesome new features to the Morris Moments for this exciting new season sometime very soon, but for today we just wanted to take a minute to tell you all that something big is coming soon!

Stay tuned for some of the biggest Morris Moments yet!

Until next time...