New House - Heather Rd

Nate, Colby and I moved to a new house last week!! We are still in Orem, just a few minutes north west of our old house. I will share more pictures when we are done decorating, but I know a few people have been asking to see pictures. Plus I want to remember it as it is now -- I will take pictures of the basement when it isn't as bad as it is now, it needs new carpet and more!

To Colby

Colby-

Your mother is far better at writing down memories than I am but I feel as though I should write about my feelings from when I first found out that you were going to be joining our family to this morning when I woke up to calm you down and let mom get some more sleep.

When we found out that we were going to have a baby I had two feelings- unparalleled excitement and unparalleled fear.  First I want to talk about the excitement.

I didn’t know if you were going to be a boy or girl yet but I didn’t care.  I knew that you and I were going to be best friends and that we were going to learn new things and go on adventures together.  I knew that you and I were going to have times where we laughed so hard we cried.  I knew that we would learn from each other and help each other become better in every way.  I knew that you would motivate me to work harder, be better, and love deeper.  I knew that you would be an example to your future siblings.

But there was also what I didn’t know.
I didn’t know how I would be able to protect you from all the terrible things on this earth.  I didn’t know how I would be able to make sure you always had everything you needed.  I didn’t know how I would be able to share the love I have for your mother with you.  I didn’t know how to be the example you would need.  I didn’t know how I would teach you things that even I didn’t fully understand.

My excitement matched my fear.  Every time we went to have a digital look at your progress I was always filled with this fear and excitement.  After waiting for far too long we finally arrived at the day where you and I were able to meet.

Your mother was incredible.  After months and months of physical torment she pushed through the final pain to bring you where we could both hold you together.  It was incredible seeing you for the first time.  You had hair!  You had beautiful eyes!  You were already impressing the nurses with your long arms and legs.  One of the nurses even said that you would be an amazing basketball player!
 
You made me so proud.  You went through such a terrifying moment with so many dramatic changes and you calmed down so that we could hold you for the first time.  Feeling your skin touch ours was indescribable.  When I first looked into your big eyes I knew I was overwhelmed with emotion.
 
The longer I held you the more excitement and fear I had.  I will have that excitement and fear for the rest of my life but as the months have gone by the fear has been overcome by the excitement and replaced with a deep calm.

Why calm?  Because I know in my heart that while I may not be able to overcome all of the fears that I have for you I know that I will try as hard as I am physically, mentally, and spiritually able to.  If I give you everything I have in my being I know that you will be happy, safe, and strong.
  
Love other people- even the ones that seem to seem to only want to hurt others.  They need love the most.  Protect yourself and those you love.  Protect that which you know to be true.  Learn new things.  Challenge yourself.  Challenge the known and unknown of this world.  Never be afraid to fail.  Never be afraid to try.

I love you Colby and I am so proud of you.  I am going to make sure I spend my life making sure you know that.

2014 Goals

I have made some goals for the next year.... things I want to focus on, things I want to do. And of course the number one thing on my list is to give birth to a healthy baby boy this May.

At this point I think I would be okay with baby boy coming a few days late just because it would give us some more time to plan and Nate a little more time to look for a job after he graduates at the beginning of that month. But I'm sure as I get closer and closer I will be ready to have him out of me. And really, I already wish I could give him a little snug.

But anyway, here is my list of goals for the year, they may change as life changes. But this is what I want to do.

Health:
1) Give birth to a healthy baby boy
2) Go to the dentist
3) Get my eyes checked
4) Run a 5k
5) Eventually get back to pre pregnancy weight

Money:
1) Have xxx in savings (you don't need to know how much money we have)
2) Pay at least 5,000 towards student loan debt

Spiritual:
1) Go to the temple at least 2 times
2) Pay a full tithe
3) Read the Book of Mormon

Blog:
1) Get blog to at least 150,000 views a month
2) Get at least $500 a month from blog ads or sponsored posts

House:
1) Clean out baby room closet
2) Take extra clothes and misc items to DI
3) Paint baby room
4) Paint guest room
5) Organize under the stairs - add a light

Extra:
1) Take a cooking class
2) Read 10 books

And that's all I've got for right now. I think its good to have things for us to focus on and work towards even if we don't accomplish our goals exactly to the T. I just know I want to improve myself this year to make myself a better person, a better wife and a good mama!

Baby BOY!

We went to the doctor this morning for my ultrasound. We were anxious to find out if our little gnocchi is a boy or a girl, but even more anxious to find out that the baby is healthy.

The ultrasound tech did lots of measurements of baby as we looked around in there to see how he's growing. Measured his brain, the distance from my placenta to cervix, his spine and more. And while we were looking around we saw that our little baby is in fact a HE!

As we were looking around in there the tech showed us something and said "there is no question about the gender on this one" as we saw our little man with his little man parts. I won't post a picture, because I don't want him to be embarrassed one day about it being online!

I could have sworn this little one was going to be a girl - so, so much for having mother's intuition on that one. We couldn't be more thrilled that it will be a boy joining our family. Having an older watchful older brother just seems like the best option, and hopefully he will be a great example to our other future children.

I do hope however that we don't get stuck with the 4 boys like Nate's parents did, I really do want a little girl one day!

We have a few names in mind, but haven't decided on one just yet. And I'm not sure if we will decide before he's born or not, and even if we do, I'm not sure if we will share it or not, because I don't want any negative thoughts about our choices.

Tonight we are going to Babies R Us to look for a crib, and hopefully a cute first outfit for our little guy - as I currently own ZERO boy baby clothes!

I can't wait to meet this little man in just about 19 weeks (he was measuring 2 days ahead of our due date in size, so I wonder when he will actually come) but hope he grows a little bit more until then, as he's not even 1 pound yet!

Ps. Sorry we didn't do a cute gender reveal, we were too excited to wait and not tell everyone right away. So here's our big announcement!

2013 in Review

2013 has been another great year for the Nate Berrett family. We didn't go on a "summer trip" this year, but we were able to go camping a few times, work is still good for both of us, school is good for Nate, we are having a baby next year and life is good.

Here are some of our highlights from the year (Not in any particular order):

1) Dain and Ash got married! On June 14th, Nate's older brother Dain got married to Ash. It was a beautiful wedding and a beautiful day and I am so happy to have the two of them in my life. Its so fun to have them live in Utah also so that we are able to do stuff with them often!

2) I ran a half marathon! In July a pioneer day half marathon up in Farmington. I prepared a lot for it, though the farthest I ran before the actual race was about 8.5 miles, I was able to finish the half marathon under my goal time of 2.5 hours (just barely - I finished it in 2:26) and without walking at all!

3)We hiked to the top of Mt. Timpanogos. Since I moved to Utah 7 years ago I have wanted to hike to the top of Mt. Timpanogos. Finally this summer Nate and I were able to do it. The Mountain peak is at 11,752 feet and the hike was pretty excruciating, especially cause we thought there would be more water/rivers along the way, but we made it to the top and back down (which was even harder for me) and I am so glad we did it!

4) We're having a baby! Due May 16, 2014 baby Berrett should make his/her appearance! We couldn't feel more blessed to become parents to this sweet little one and can't wait to find out the gender in two days!

5) We went to Virginia for Thanksgiving! We were able to get a couple days of work and fly out to Virginia for the Thanksgiving holiday. Lots of good food was eaten, lots of gaming was done, and most of all we enjoyed spending so much time with family!

6) We spent Christmas in California! We were able to spend Christmas with my parents were we got totally spoiled by each other, our parents and everyone else with lots of fantastic gifts! We also got to go to SeaWorld, the San Diego Safari Park, the dog beach, see extended family, reunite with friends, and have a blast playing lots of new games we got as presents!

As you can see, 2013 was a really great year for us but I have a feeling 2014 is going to be even better!

Baby Berrett - Coming May 2014

If you aren't my friend on facebook, instagram, or a follower of my food blog then maybe you don't already know. But guess what?! Nate and I are expecting a baby!

I am a little over 14 weeks pregnant right now and this little one should be fully cooked around May 16. We are so thrilled to become parents, and its very surreal that there is a little one growing inside of me now. (So much that I often doubt that the baby is still there). However, I have been feeling a little sick, less so in the last couple weeks thankfully. And baby should now be the size of a lemon.

Because it was requested by a certain friend, I will tell you how we found out we were pregnant. Nate and I wanted to have a baby born in May of next year or later. But because Nate graduates school at the very beginning of May we were nervous to "start trying" too soon, not knowing how quickly or how long it would take us to get pregnant, but wanting to err on the side of later was better for us.

I'll get to the nitty gritty and say I got off of birth control at the beginning of August. But we fully expected it would take a few months to get it out of my system and to get back into a regular cycle that we would actually be able to start trying.

I have a very personal journal that I keep for myself on Evernote. No one else has access to that account and its nice to be able to write out my very personal thoughts and feelings there. Things that I want to remember but don't need to share with the whole world.

I don't know the exact date that I got pregnant since it did happen so quickly for us and I didn't ever have a regular period off of birth control to know how long my cycles are. But based on our baby being due May 16th, I got pregnant around Aug 23rd.

Well, on August 22nd I wrote in my personal online journal that I felt a little sick. I wrote: "This morning after my run and on my way to work, I felt a little sick. A little sick like I needed to eat something, but I'm sure I'm over analyzing this. I ate a granola bar when I got to work and I feel good now... it can't be morning sickness. Right?"

For the next few days after I wrote in my journal that I was over analyzing things, cause even if I was pregnant then I could maximum be about a week along (and I actually was only maybe a day or two) so I shouldn't have felt any symptoms, and maybe they were unrelated. But I was still a little suspicious.

We bought a pregnancy test finally on Sept 7, a two pack set. I planned to wait to take the test in the morning when my urine would be stronger. We were too nervous to wait, so I went ahead and took the test. It says to wait 3 minutes to look at the test and see the results, so I left the test on the bathroom counter and left the room and set a timer to wait. Nate went back into the bathroom before the time was up. But he looked at it anyway, and it said pregnant!

We were both still a little skeptical I think, so I took the second test Sunday (the next day) morning and it said positive again. Although I had felt like I could be pregnant early on, once I saw the "pregnant" test results I doubted it. I thought something was wrong, that someone the hormones from my birth control were still in my body and throwing the results off or that I had done the test wrong, or that I had a brain tumor. I wanted to take a test every day to make sure I was really pregnant and still pregnant every day.

I was nervous that I would miscarry also, and am still nervous that something could happen. I took a third and fourth pregnancy test of different brands to make sure it still said positive the next week and of course they did.

We went to the doctor around 8 weeks, still not knowing how far along we were. I wanted Nate to go cause I thought there might be a small chance we would be able to hear the heartbeat. Nate was able to come with me, which I was glad for the comfort, but still assumed it would be a basic appointment with blood tests and things to check my health in general. At the end the doctor said "okay, we'll do the ultrasound now" and we were both shocked. We saw our little frog in there measuring about 1.37 centimeters at the time and heard the heart beat and it made it a lot more real that there was/is actually a little human being growing inside of me.

I am so thrilled to be growing this little one inside of me. I can't wait to find out the gender, though I really think its a girl (maybe I'll say more on that in another post), although we usually refer to it as a he. We should find out the gender of the baby the week after Christmas.

I also can't wait to have my belly pop out (more) if you look at these pictures, it looks like its growing a little already. And to feel this little one move around inside of me.

I can't wait to even more so be the mother of this baby when it actually comes to join our family in May. And I pray all continues to go well for me and this sweet baby.

Dain and Ash get married!

I haven't been updating this blog lately, and I'm not really sure why. I have been cooking a lot! And I have been writing in my "journal" but not here.

Almost a month ago Nate's older brother Dain got married. Dain and Ash got married on June 14th, 2013. It was a beautiful wedding ceremony, and a great day. They got married down in the Manti temple, and then had a reception at this place in Lindon called Noah's.

I am so happy for them, and so happy to have Ash as my "new sister"!