Family Vacation & other updates

Hellooooooo! I've been MIA with the posts lately - sorry mom! A few updates for those of you who don't know - I'm now in my second trimester! Woohoo! The doctor changed my due date to October 7th and as of tomorrow, I will be 13 weeks pregnant. According to thebump.com our baby is the size of a peach now! (Hmmm, is it weird that I feel like having some peach cobbler now? lol) The gummy bear is a peach now!
Soooo, we had our first "family vacation" this weekend. We went to Arizona for Spring Training. (Are you surprised? hehe) We had a blast & took this family photo on the last day there:

Can you see my bump?!?!? :o) Oh, one more thing in case you didn't notice: I chopped off 5 or 6 inches of my hair! Sooo much healthier now. Yay!

Not Quite a Gummy Bear

Today was incredible. We heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time. Wow. Wow. Wow. Amazing. There's no way to truly describe what I felt at that moment. Just, wow! We got to bring home another picture of our baby too. The ultrasound lady described the baby as bigger than a grain of rice but not quite a gummy bear yet. Hehe, I love it! She also said the baby was moving around in there (she sounded surprised too) so of course Josh interpreted that as "Your son is running the bases in there. He's going to be fast!" Gotta love my husband! :o) So here's the baby:


And if you look closely, you might be able to see what Josh saw:

Note: This is from the pitcher's point of view. Yes, the kid's gonna be a lefty. :o)

My Mom Knows How to Make Me Cry!

Yup, my Mom always knows how to make me cry. I should note that I don't mean in a bad way before you start thinking she's a meany! I just mean she says things or sends me things, EMOTIONAL things, that just make me cry! (No need to point out that I'm super emotional - even before I was pregnant! hehe...imagine how I am now...yeesh.) My mom sent me this video today of this song; it's very beautiful and caused me to cry. Ok sob. I was thinking of me with my daddy at times and then also thinking of Josh with our baby. Whether or not this one's a girl, I could just picture Josh in my head, holding our baby with so much love in his puppy dog eyes...What a moment. Okay, enough babbling from me. Here's the video:

IT WON'T BE LIKE THIS FOR LONG w/Darius Rucker

And if you wanna know what else makes me cry....watch TV & pay close attention to the Gerber commercials. Especially the one with all the pregnant ladies. I'm such a sucker...

Telling His Parents (and the rest of the family)

Friday, February 6th was Valerie's birthday. (I should mention that she proclaimed it her 1st birthday, as she's starting over. heehee...) So anyways, it was finally the day we could make our announcement to Josh's family. Those 5 days were the longest ever (and I think Thursday was even longer for Josh since we were finally able to tell MY parents and he still had to bite his tongue around his family!) Everybody was going to Olive Garden to celebrate with Val and Josh & I made it a point to sit right next to the birthday girl. We agreed to wait till AFTER we all ordered to make the announcement to avoid any interruptions....or so we thought. hehe

Josh had talked to Noel about filming that night because he wanted it on video when we gave Val her present (didn't tell her WHAT though!)...So after we had all ordered our food, and Josh made sure that Noel had her camera all cued up (after she took FOREVER showing Marlene a video of Leila dancing), Josh stood up. "First off, I want to thank everyone for coming tonight and I want to wish my mom a happy birthday!" He turned to me to grab my hand and ask me to stand up with him. Just then we hear "Hang on! My tape ran out!" Yes, RIGHT BEFORE Josh was going to make the announcement that Noel was videotaping, her tape ran out. LOL... At this point, I saw Val looking at me with the corner of her eyes with a silly grin on her face. Do you think she knew what we were about to announce? I quickly looked the other way, probably making it even more obvious.

Okay, new tape in, all cued up. Mikey says "Take two. And Action!" Josh starts over for the sake of getting a continuous video, then turns to me again & asks me to stand. He finally gets to announce, "Allison and I are pregnant!" Yay!!! Val throws her arms up in the air like she just won a gold medal. "Yes! Yes!" Here's a picture of her moments after the big announcement:


Josh said afterward that he was so excited to tell them. He had always looked forward to the day that he could tell them he was finally going to be a father. :o)

Telling My Parents

Let's see here....so back to the week we found out. Remember, we had agreed not to tell anyone until we confirmed it at the doctor's? Well, Josh couldn't keep it a complete secret & he ended up telling one of his friends. Kinda cute that he couldn't wait to tell someone. So anyways, after the doctor's appointment on Thursday, February 5th, as we were driving to lunch, we called my parents. My mom answered. I was soooo excited to hear her voice, but I tried to remain calm so I wouldn't just blurt it out. I asked her if my dad was nearby and she said sure. Then she asked if she should give him the phone & leave the room. "No, mom, I'm not trying to talk to dad about you." hehe....I told her to put it on speaker phone & I think she then got suspicious....like, hmmmm, whyyyyyyyyy? She did anyways and then we could hear my dad on the phone too. Josh said hi to them and then my dad thanked us for the Christmas gifts.

(Side note: yes, Christmas gifts. yes, it was already February. I procrastinated a bit getting them in the mail.)

Okay, back to the story. Josh said you're welcome to them & then he added "We actually have one more gift for you guys." My mom replied (you can still hear the suspicion in her voice) "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, but it's going to be awhile again," I said. "We're pregnant!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" My mom & dad were screaming & crying; it was so exciting!!! I honestly can't remember much of what was said after that, but I do remember the emotions. :o) It was so incredible to tell my parents that they were going to be grandparents! Grandma Patty & Grandpa Eloy! Or maybe Nana Patty & Papa Loy. Or maybe whatever our baby grows up to call them. Their grand-baby! Wow!

And it would still be another full day before telling Josh's parents... Did I mention we were waiting till Friday to tell them? It was Val's birthday...and we think an announcement of a new grand-baby on the way would be QUITE the birthday gift!

Introducing...

...our baby! (Hehe...it's the dark circle on the left. There's a dotted line going through it for the doctor to measure the baby.) It was kind of an old school ultrasound machine so the picture quality wasn't that great, but I can't help but stare at this photo all the time now. It's already framed on our wall at home in a frame we received for our wedding. It says on the frame "All because two people fell in love." :o) So appropriate. We get to go again for a much better ultrasound in 2 weeks....and we'll get to hear the baby's heartbeat!

Gifts Because of Baby

Even so soon in the pregnancy, Josh & I have both given each other gifts concerning the baby and we've also received a couple of things from others too...and with these wonderful pregnancy hormones, they've all made me cry! :o) I just wanted to share a few of these gifts so far:

The valentine's day bouquet from Josh had 3 yellow flowers - one for me, one for him, and one for the baby! :o)

On two separate occasions (one just because & the other valentine's day), I gave these cute little onesies to Josh. In case you can't read them, the one on the left says "Daddy's Rookie" (which by the way, even if it's a girl, she's still wearing this) and the one on the right says "My Dad's a Superhero."

Josh gave me this pretty pink & white sapphire ring as an early Valentine's gift. I first thought it was pink because of Valentine's....and then he told me pink is one of October's birthstones. Bring on the waterworks.

Then, this weekend one of my really good friends, Yadira, surprised us with this personalized frame to put a pic in once the baby is born. It was a bit hard to photograph since it was reflective, but it's engraved on the bottom & it reads "The Miranda Family." She gave me a really nice card to go with it - it was very touching to read what she wrote to me. :o) Thanks again Yadi!


And last, but definitely not least, for those of you who don't know - I'm spoiled. There I said it. Not just by my husband, but my dad still likes to spoil me too. Ever since I was 5, my dad has always bought me flowers for Valentine's Day. Yes, every year for the last twenty-something years, my dad has given me flowers for Valentine's. :o) Last year, it was extra special because he picked out an arrangement in a basket similar to the one my mom carried in their wedding. He picked it so that I could have my flower girl use it in my wedding last year. Well, this year's flowers also included something a lil' extra. It was a cute little teddy bear with a red bow tie with hearts on it. And on the note he wrote "Happy Valentine's Day! I think you know who the bear is for. Love you, dad." Isn't he the best? Love you too dad!