it doesn't stop.

The most recent belly shot taken. This is at about 17 weeks. I am almost 20 weeks now and I need to take a new belly shot because I swear I have doubled in size since then. Check it out I am actually wearing a belt in that picture. The belt no longer touches over my belly now.
Doubling your size in a small body like mine is a PAINFUL process and it's not done growing!!! What?? Are you serious? The growing doesn't stop? oh jeez, this is going to hurt. It is the most odd feeling in the world to feel your body being pushed from the inside- out. For my stomach muscles to be sore from being stretched outward, instead of being sore from being sucked inward. And the new discovery of the week: having a patch of skin that is now numb constantly on top of my right ribs (found out to be caused by rib seperation because of my ever expanding diaphragm)... why didn't anyone warn me about these things???! Okay let's try and remember the positives: I can feel the baby moving almost constantly now (yup just felt a lil kick right now), being pregnant is beautiful, I can allow my belly to hang out as far as possible without feeling bad about it, my husband tells me all the time how beautiful I am pregnant ( I really do need to hear that especially after stepping off the scale) and I am beginning to get public attention now because of the bump (which may soon jump to the negative side but for now it's fun).
So now for the BIG news!! We have known for a while now but we are having a BOYYY!! We are eccstatic! It just made everything much more real to us. I can't wait to see how cute he is!
We decided when we found out the sex of the baby to keep it a secret from our families until Christmas (also, it's an inexpensive gift for us poor people). It was a hard secret to keep but we did pretty good. It was really fun to share the ultrasound with everyone and watch their reactions when they saw the butt shot haha. So fun. What made it more fun is that mostly everyone thought FOR SURE it was a girl, SURPRISE! Actually Brady and I also thought for sure it was a girl so we were just as shocked at the ultrasound to see the butt shot. I am thinking this baby likes surprises.
So the holidays are over...so sad. We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We had to make our Christmas on Christmas Eve because both of us had to work on Christmas day (bummer, I know). Nonetheless it was still awesome! Mostly, I just love watching Braden open his gifts. He is such a little kid sometimes- maybe a lot of times, but he makes my life so much fun.
We had a Christmas party with most of the Harker side (we missed Max, Jayme, Halle and Trey) and my brother Brad and his family (now official Utards) were able to come to the party also. We then flew to SoCal for my family Christmas party. Party party party. We had a great time with all of our family! And we miss them all already. It's just not enough time.
New Year's Eve we were on a plane home from Long Beach. We barely got home before midnight and completely missed the countdown because we were exhausted and getting ready for bed... oops. Actually I totally forgot about it until I could hear firecrackers going off outside. What was cool though was that we were able to watch fireworks while laying in bed looking out our window. Someone was lighting off huge ones up on the mountain behind us, it was a good lil firework show.
It was an awesome Holiday Season this year! We have so much to look forward to for 2010: A BABY BOY!, Braden's graduation, full hearts and empty pockets!