Baby Poll- Girl or Boy??

                      The night before our appointment we talked to most of our family members
                     to get their guesses on what our baby would be... Girl won by just a few votes

               For those of you who haven't heard on Sept. 25th we found out our sweet baby is

 For some reason I felt like 100% it was going to be a boy all along. I've had a feeling since about 8 weeks, not sure why. Austin's brothers have both had boys first and both of my siblings with kids have had boys first so I kinda just thought the pattern would stay. We went to the doctor and she began our ultra sound, we'd told her we wanted to find out the gender and that we had a for sure girls name picked out but weren't sure on a boys name. She said it was probably a boy then haha as she went on everything was looking great, baby is growing like it should be and finally she said I think..... from this angle it looks like a girl. Then she kept moving it around and from another angle she said yes this definitely looks like a girl! Finally one last view... yep it is a girl haha we are so happy. We didn't care if it was a girl or boy, we just wanted a healthy baby. We're extremely excited for baby Tenlee to join our family in March. Now we just need to start preparing. We have yet to buy anything except a diaper bag which I bought before we knew it was a girl. We wanted something that would work for either gender and I love it. I'm a little obsessed with turquoise.

Diaper bag I got for a steal on zulily.com

 

 Also, if any of you have any great suggestions on what the heck we should do for the baby's bedroom I am open to any and all ideas. I'm kinda thinking of doing red & turquoise... or bright colors like pinks, greens, turquoises, and oranges, but I honestly just have no idea.

not the best pictures because they are pictures of pictures

Baby girl has her hands up by her head

 

Here Tenlee's little mouth is open ;) our doctor was so excited

about this picture and said our baby was very cute!

18 1/2 weeks

         I'm feeling really great right now. Not nearly as tired, not ever sick, no more heartburn, just lots of eating :) my belly is growing but still kind of just looks chubby to me. I started feeling her move last week which is so much fun. I can't wait until Austin can start to feel our baby girl. We're ready for the next couple of months and pray everything will continue to go well for us :)

Also on another side note, I decided to take a different job at my same place becoming a loan officer. This job I would just do my work and be able to worry about myself and making sure I got my job done, then when the baby comes I was planning to go to 30 hours. On my first day of being a loan officer my boss called me in her office and said I was being asked to go to the Clearfield Branch and be the asst. manager if I was interested!! Wow this kinda of changes all plans we had for the future, but I decided this was a great opportunity for our family and my career and couldn't pass up the offer. So now I am working in Clearfield and will be staying full time when the baby comes. We've already found a babysitter and things are falling into place for our little family. Just hope my prego brain doesn't kick in too much while trying to learn a new job :)

13 weeks-16 weeks

13 Weeks
       Not too much has changed these days. I still eat about every 2 hours, I haven't gotten sick again yet! Whoohoo.  I have had a few new things come up that have been new for me. We ate some pizza the other night and after we ate my throat felt kinda weird. I was explaining to Austin what was happening and he just started laughing and said that is heartburn. What?!? This is heartburn? I have never had heartburn in my life. I had no idea what it actually was. I thought it was like pain in your chest. So that is something new. Also, I've never been one to get sick from like rides, or cruises, or cars, or anything really. I now get car sick! That is not something I ever thought would happen with pregnancy, but it sure has. I haven't really had cravings that I can think of. I love mint chocolate chip ice cream, but that is also a pre pregnancy thing. I just love ice cream in general. Sometimes when I'm walking I feel like I'm gonna tip over and lose my balance. Doctor said weird equilibrium is normal and advised me not to play sports haha.

14 Weeks
        Sometimes I almost don't even feel pregnant. It scares me a little, but I guess that is a good thing. I'm still somewhat tired, but not nearly as tires as I used to be. I don't have to eat every 2 hours. I just eat when I feel hungry, which is pretty often but not like the past few weeks. My belly is growing a little at a time. I don't think it looks like a prego belly yet, just looks like i'm getting chubby.

15 & 16 Weeks

Don't love my face in this pic

wish I had Shannon's tan

       
 Nothing too different these days. We did go on vacation to Arizona and it was very hot. I don't know how pregnant women do it. We were able to spend some fun time with my sister and her family for Mitch's baptism. She is pregnant with her first little girl and she was 21 weeks while we were there. We took this belly pic but you can't really tell where my belly is because of my dress. We also got to spend some time with Austin's brother Kyle and his family. His wife Tricia was about 34 weeks pregnant too. We had so much fun and can't wait to visit again and see all the babies.

Baby Hoffmann!

Austin and I are pregnant and so excited!! We are due March 1, 2013. We are a little over 12 weeks.

Weird smiles, but we were excited haha

We told our families like this: The original plan was to try and get our families all together. I wanted my family all together for dinner for "my dad's retirement dinner" because he retired a few weeks ago so that was a good decoy.... but then it didn't really work out and we couldn't wait another day to tell people so we made a little visit to my Mom and Dad's  and told them we had a present for Dad for his retirement. So we waited for him to get home and had him open the present with Mom and Blake there. The rest of the family just got a picture message via text. Half of Austin's family is in Lake Powell so they still don't know haha but we were like two kids on Christmas morning. We couldn't wait any longer.

Mom's pretty excited

So is Uncle Blakey

Not a great pic, but he was opening the present. Dad is excited to be

the babysitter ;)

Our baby will be the 8th Grandchild on the Garner side, and the 16th on the Hoffmann

Surprisingly very few people got what the number meant

We had to keep explaining it. Goobers!

How/when we found out: As most of you know Austin and I have been trying to get pregnant since last August. After our miscarriage in March we weren't sure how long it'd take for us to get pregnant again. In June I wasn't feeling any signs of pregnancy or anything, but it was Austin's Birthday so I thought it might be fun if we found out that day. So I secretly took a pregnancy test. It was a little soon to know if we were pregnant so I wasn't sure what we'd get. The test was not a100% clear.. there was a dark line and a very very faint line.. so I wasn't sure. I told Austin and he couldn't tell either, so we decided I'd take another one the next morning just in case. Sure enough the next morning I took 2 tests.. and what do you know. 2 positives!! Austin was at work so I sent him a little text message. I don't know if finding out early was such a good idea... I was only 5 weeks when we found out and it has been a LONG LONG 7 weeks. For those of you who know Austin and I well, we are not good at hiding things. I mean I usually give him his Christmas presents the week before Christmas.  It has been really hard hiding what we know. There have been several times we've just wanted to tell everyone, but know the risks of miscarriage. We wanted to wait until we'd at least had our 12 week appointment. Yesterday we went to the doctor and when we got there they told us she was an hour behind and the wait would be at least that, they asked if we wanted to reschedule... but really what's an hour wait when we've been waiting a month!! So we waited patiently. Our hour wait quickly turned into 2 hours, but was well worth it when we saw our baby for the second time. The doctor said everything looked great and baby was measuring 12 weeks and 5 days... except it's head was 13 weeks and it's legs were 13 weeks. This made us laugh pretty hard because we are not tall people so for it's legs to be a week ahead was hilarious. Dr. Mark quickly reassured us that the body will quickly catch up to the legs so we will probably have a little shorty like us. My old doctor Machel who I loved is no longer taking pregnancy patients so we had to find a new doctor. We go to Kathy Mark at Circle of Life Women's Center and are LOVING her.

How I've been feeling: I very quickly began feeling symptoms of pregnancy, but they were minor compared to many women I know. I've been extremely lucky in the puking department!! My symptoms mostly started with bloating, fatigue, and hunger.. the typical symptoms I'd say. I learned very fast that if I did not eat every 2 hours I would not have a good day. I feel hungry all the time, but nothing ever sounds good to me. Snacks do not sound good at all, I want real food. Like mashed potatoes haha I've been eating a lot of pop tarts, crackers, and peanut butter and honey. I crave turkey sandwiches everyday, but can't have them :( I don't know if it'd be considered a craving, but pancakes and eggo waffles always sound delicious to me. At 10 weeks the headaches began. I feel nauseous all the time, but have only puked twice. Both times were kinda my own fault. The first time I puked was at 10 weeks it was our turn for family night with Austin's family and we were in charge of making dinner for everyone. After dinner we played games and I had a headache all day. Being at someone else's house I lost track of time and didn't eat for like 3-4 hours... when we got home that night I puked. Then the second time was Saturday evening. We went to the REAL Salt Lake game for a work party, I ate right before we left and we were going to have dinner at the game. When we got there it was so hot, and we waited in line for a very long time for some nasty pizza.. Once we got our food it had been about 3 hours since I'd eaten, and a headache was beginning. I ate the pizza and immediately felt sick. We watched the game and had a good time other then I didn't feel good the whole time, and on the way home grabbed some chick-fil-a. After the long drive home from Sandy, we got our car from our friends house and started driving home. About 1 minute into the drive I told Austin he better pull over cuz I was gonna puke. He pulled into a church parking lot and I puked as soon as I got out... not my finest moment. I think people thought I was drunk. There were some people outside on their porch watching and some teenagers drove by honked, and yelled something at me which made me laugh. I'm sure the last thing they were thinking was I was pregnant. So like I said I have been very lucky only puking twice. As long as I can eat every two hours. As for being tired. I've never really been a good sleeper, I'm kinda a light sleeper and have a hard time getting to sleep. Not with pregnancy! I can sleep anywhere anytime for hours and I can get to sleep in a moment. I'm loving this. Another symptom I've noticed that nobody really ever told me about was patience. I've lost a lot of patience for everything. I try so hard to always be in a good mood, but sometimes it just doesn't work out so I'm hoping this is just a phase that will soon go away. I haven't really had morning sickness, I usually feel the worst in the afternoon around 3-7PM. Overall I'm feeling good and just excited to continue on this journey.


Do we want a boy or girl: All we care about is having a healthy full term baby! We do not have a preference. Ever since about 7 weeks I've had this feeling it's a boy, but we find out in 5 weeks at our next appointment. I think we've got a definite name for a girl, but boys we've got like 20... so naturally it will probably be a boy. Austin doesn't think it's anything but a baby... if you ask him what he thinks it is, that's what he says. A baby.

We're just excited to see what the next few months bring and we'll keep you posted on everything. Next post will have pictures of me. I feel like I have a little belly, but other people can't really see it yet. Guess that's probably how it goes for everyone.

Interesting Year So Far

Austin and I usually have a pretty low key life for the most part. We go to work, Austin goes to school, we fulfill our church callings, and look forward to the weekends that we can spend with friends and family. This year started out just the same until about March. We hit a few little bumps in the road.  After we rang in the new year we celebrated Austin's first day of his last semester of college... (that is for his bachelors degree haha he's still thinking he wants to get his masters.)

What a fun day for him though, I was so excited. 


 In February we celebrated a typical Valentine's day with dinner and a movie, lots of family birthdays and get togethers with friends.   This is a cupid sign Blakey gave me from wood creations for Christmas and I painted it and added the extras.

 Then came March haha......  Austin's cute Grandpa Braithwaite passed away from cancer on his wife's Leap Year Birthday which she only gets every 4 years.

 He was such a wonderful man and we all looked up to him and miss him a lot. In his obituary there was some confusion and it said there were 3 grandkids on the way... but only 2 that everyone knew of. We thought it would be funny if I was pregnant and nobody knew.
              About a week later, after 6 months of trying we found out we were pregnant and were so excited!! KEEP READING THOUGH, THE HAPPINESS GOES AWAY :(

 Then just Two days later.... we found out we'd miscarried at 6 weeks. This is something I think all girls fear, and yet they are SO common. We knew when we started trying to have a baby that miscarriage was extremely common, and we'd had experiences in our own families and friend group. So it wasn't too big of a shock to us, but it still isn't a fun thing. Our baby was due Nov. 8th which if you've ever talked to me about baby's FALL is my dream season to have a baby haha The Ballif Family has 0 Birthdays in November so I always tell my grandparents we'll try and get them a November baby. So that was kinda a bummer, because it would have been just perfect. And our sister in law Tricia is pregnant and was due just 2 weeks before us, so we would have had best buddy cousins too. Even though a miscarriage is not a fun thing, Austin and I feel very fortunate for the way it happened. I was able to pass it all by myself, didn't have to have the doctor do anything, and we were able to find out so early on in the pregnancy. I also had very minimal pain, and with us just finding out we were pregnant we hadn't gone in and seen a heart beat or anything yet. My heart goes out to women who miscarry after hearing the heartbeat and being more attached. That must be extremely difficult.  I hadn't been sick at all or felt any symptoms of pregnancy yet. We know things could have been much worse, because we've seen it first hand in our own family.  Our miscarriage is the 4th in a row in the Garner Fam. My sister had 3 in a row two of which were past 14 weeks and she had to go in and deliver the fetus, one by c-section. So when people tell us we are doing well, we tell them we were very lucky and are grateful for how it happened. Moving forward we know there is still a chance we'll have miscarriages again, but pray that we can have healthy children. The doctor said we are good to start trying immediately and as far as she can see there is no reason I can't have a healthy baby, which is very comforting. One thing about miscarriage that is really strange... is finding out and then deciding who or how you're going to tell people. Do you just tell people close to you, so they know.... or do you tell everyone to save them the embarrassment when they ask you why you don't have kids yet??? That was one of the weirdest things for us haha I didn't want people to feel stupid when they'd ask me and I tell them I actually just miscarried haha maybe that was just how I felt. Another thing I noticed after miscarrying was how many pregnant people there are... I swear everywhere I turned someone was pregnant, which I was happy for them but just makes you realize you aren't pregnant. One of the hardest things was the day we were at the doctors office finding out I was miscarrying. We were sitting in the lobby at Circle of Life waiting for my awesome doctor Machel Knowles (LOVE HER) but we were sitting next to this girl and what seemed to be her boyfriend, and they had to be 15 or 16 and she was as pregnant as can be... just crazy how it works out that people who don't want to have kids yet get pregnant without trying and others have a hard time having babies. But I just thought to myself, that is their trial and this is ours. Heavenly Father knows what he's doing! Also, the other day I saw a girl that had to be 8 months pregnant and she was smoking a cigarette!!! Made me so mad haha

                but on to some of the positives and fun things of this year. Austin and I got to babysit my brother Brad's old english bull dog, Guss for 2 weeks. We had so much fun. I'm a dog lover, and Austin is.... well not ha ha But I think Gussy really made Austin realize that he does in fact like dogs. Guss is so cute, and he's such a good dog. It was so fun to come home from work and have him standing at the top of the stairs just shaking his little butt cuz he was so excited to see ya. I'd also find him cuddled up on Austin's lap a lot, but for some reason he did not want to cuddle with me. Every time I'd get home Austin would say how calm and cuddly Guss had been, but as soon as I'd walk in the door he just wanted to play and wrestle. It was a lot of fun watching him though, and we'd love to do it anytime.
               We also decided after waking up two different times in the middle of the night soaking wet from our water bed...  to spend some of our tax return this year instead of saving it. Austin let me re-do our whole bedroom. I love everything about it!

 These are two before pictures

 We got our awesome bedroom set at Knights furniture on Riverdale road.... but I would never purchase anything from them again.. in case you guys were wondering haha we picked out our bedroom set and paid for in on President's Day (February) then they said it would be delivered in 2 weeks so we drained the waterbed, sold it on KSL, cleared out our entire bedroom, painted the walls, and got everything ready, meanwhile sleeping in our living room on an air mattress. A few days before we were expecting to get our bedroom set, Austin called Knights to make sure what day they'd be coming and they said our stuff was all on back order and would be another 2 weeks..... REALLY... were you gonna call and let us know that??? Nope they were actually just gonna let us wait and wonder and weren't gonna say anything until we called them. So after finding out our new date of delivery we began waiting.. and waiting... so Austin randomly called on day to see how it was coming and they realized they didn't even order all of our stuff! Annoying! Needless to say we finally got our bedroom set the beginning of April after waiting more than a month. But we love it and just know not to go to Knight's anymore. We did have one great salesman Dave who was great to work with and helped us out in the end. But overall we did not have a good experience, and I'm not usually one to talk bad about companies or experiences we've had, but we don't want our friends and family having to go through this same stuff. :)

Fresh Paint

                                                                       New Bed!!

                                                  dresser and crafts I've made to go with it

                                                             Just need to add some pictures

                      On April 20th Austin graduated from Weber State University with his bachelors degree in Business Administration!!! I am so proud of Austin and all his hard work. He spent a lot of hours doing homework and studying, and I'm so grateful he chose to go to college and further his career in hopes of being able to support our family. I'm also excited to see my husband again... or at least be able to talk to him and not have him be studying. If any of you know anybody hiring he is on the lookout for a job now... like every other graduate, we'd be happy to have Austin hired haha We were able to have a fun day at his graduation though. Me, my Mom, Grandpa & Grandma Ballif, Austin's parents, and sister Aleece all attended his graduation, followed by a delicious lunch at Texas Roadhouse.

Aust and his parents

The whole gang

I had a hard time deciding what to get Austin for graduation because he never wants anything... but I decided it was time he had his own set of golf clubs. My family and Austin's friends are all big into golf and he just hasn't loved golfing because he didn't have his own clubs and has to borrow peoples and didn't think that was fun. So I decided it was time, now that he's going to be in the business world and you hear all the time about "business lunches" that are actually a day of golfing, that is was time he had clubs of his own. So with the help of my good friend Blake Holbrook, I purchased a set of Callaway's used by Blake haha and my parents who got Austin a golf bag, and his family who was generous and gave him money.. Austin is now a golfer.... or at least on the road to becoming one :) (pictures to come soon)


                  This is the longest post I think I've ever done. Wow! last but not least Austin is playing on a mens soccer league with his buddies right now and a few weeks ago he got kicked in the calf as he was stepping down and this is what happened. He's hardly been able to walk for about 2 1/2 weeks luckily nothing was broken just a strained muscle.  He is eager to get back out on the soccer field.


                                       Austin's hurt leg

                                           and fat foot

We were also able to take a road trip this past week and visit my sister and Austin's brother's families in Arizona. Me, Austin, my Mom, Austin's Mom,  sister Aleece, and her 3 kids made the 14 hour drive to Arizona. We dropped my mom off with Shannon, spent 2 days with Austin's family playing games, relaxing, and shopping. Then went to Shannon's for 2 days where we went to an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game which was a blast, watched Mitch play some baseball, shopped, relaxed, and had lots of fun. Then the last day Austin's fam came over to Shannon's and we had a swimming/bbq party with the families all together. It was a blast and we can't wait to do it again. This time driving seemed to go by a lot quicker then our drives in the past.... not sure why, but we had a lot of fun and love the chance to go to Arizona. Not sure why, but I didn't take any pictures the whole trip. Bummer

   Austin and I look forward to all the events 2012 will bring. We're praying for new jobs and babies!!! Hope you all are having a good year too. Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Christmas Tree

Heading to church

Mom and her new bling bling

picture of Mom and Dad's rings

Ugly sweaters

The Crew

Austin 1st place Tyler 2nd place

Austin and Brett's annual awkward photo... that's never planned

Ballif party

Me, Nash, and Scott's fingers haha he ruined our cute picture

Dad was laughing his head off, he was trying to tell a joke and thought he was SO funny he couldn't even breath. It was HILARIOUS just seeing him try to tell the joke

The kids in their nativity clothes

We had an awesome Christmas this year. Shannon and Jordan came up and got here in time for the Ballif Family Party which was a blast as always. We had some chick fil a for dinner, played the dart game, and Grandpa showed us a great spiritual movie. We got home from our cruise the Sunday before Christmas and it worked out perfectly. Christmas morning Austin had to work so I woke up and went to my parents to watch Mitch and Nash open their presents, then came back home to meet up with Austin to go to his sisters church during the afternoon. After church we headed to the Hoffmann's to give his parents and siblings their gifts, then off to the Garner's for dinner and presents. After dinner we headed to Grandma Hoffmann's for a little bit, then back out to my parents, then we decided to come home and watch the Grinch together before heading to bed... we ended up going to bed at like 8:30 :) Holidays have become very long days with both of our families living so close to each other, but we wouldn't change it. We might not be able to go so many places once we have kids, but we'll keep doing it until it gets to be too much. Overall Christmas was an awesome day. This year my Dad surprised my mom majorly. Ever since Grandma Garner passed away and Mom got her ring I've been telling my dad to take it to a jeweler and have him make a new setting with Grandma's diamonds and after a few years he finally decided to do it. Before our cruise my Dad and I went to his friend Greg Norton's to pick out a new setting. It was so much fun. While we were there Dad decided he also wanted a new ring with the diamonds from Grandpa's ring. So on Christmas with everyone their Mom opened her new ring that she had no clue she was getting, and dad put on his new ring. It was so much fun helping my dad surprise her. We ended up also getting her some diamond earrings with leftover diamonds from Grandpa's ring that Dad's new ring didn't need.
Such a good Christmas surprise.

Before we left on our cruise we went to our favorite Crew Annual Ugly Sweater Party. It was a blast as always. Austin and I were pumped because we randomly went to the DI in November and scored with some major ugly sweaters that we knew would have to be in the running for the contest... we were right. Austin won the ugly sweater contest and gets his name added to the trophy. (Scott and Jen borrowed our ugly sweaters for a party they were going to and Austin's sweater won again at their party haha ) We had dinner, treats, watched some sports, played with all the cute babies and got some sweet white elephants. Thanks to the Greenwell's for always putting together such a fun party.