favorite memories: play hard

i don't know about you but when i take my kids to a public place like a water park, or even take walks down the street, i see bunches of kids playing.....but no parents interacting with them! it makes me so sad! some of my favorite memories are doing fun things with the kids! there are totally {a lot} of times where i am sitting to the side, relaxing, but just don't miss out on fun things with your kids out of laziness or because you are distracted with other things, aka your phone, computer, tv shows, friends....

here is one of my favorite memories with the boys

we went to Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach and were having a fun night just walking around. the boys were thrilled to see the big fountain! they took off their socks and shoes and then were big babies and wouldn't go through it! so i said " you guys want mommy to go in with you?" they looked at me like i was crazy! even my mom said "Alivia! your 7 months pregnant, your in your clothes!" 

                      

here we are before

before you know it, my heels were off and if you look closely you can see hunter and i in the middle!

all of the kids around us were cracking up and all the parents probably hated me because their kids wanted them to get it!

carter and i

it was such a fun night....until 5 minutes after and we were freezing!!! we had no towels or a change of clothes so the boys started crying! but it was fun while the moment lasted! :)

do fun things with your kids! shock your kids one day and do something "crazy"! i want my kids to always have fun memories of me and know that their mommy likes to have fun! let loose and know its ok to mess up your makeup and get your hair wet! 

here is another favorite memory: rock on

knowing that God always comes through

after my last post baby mama drama i wanted to follow up with this one! after having low progesterone levels and the doc finding a blood clot in my ultrasound at 6 weeks,  the doctor found a "band" that wrapped around my uterus at our 12 week ultrasound. it totally freaked me out! she specifically said not to look up anything online, but what do you do when you find out something is in your body and you know nothing about...you look it up online! shawn had to keep asking me if i was staying off line and would tell him i was then one night i started crying telling him how there were different stories of babies born with out arms, legs or something! they got tangled up in the band and the blood flow got cut off and they babies would lose a limb while still in the mom's belly! after those stories i HAD to stop looking things up!

we all knew that i wanted a baby girl but after that i was just thinking "all i want is a healthy baby" the doctor said they wanted to do another ultrasound around 16 weeks and not to worry because the babe was to small to get tangled in the band for now.

the night before our ultrasound i was just laying in bed and i just was thanking God that we would go to our ultrasound and the band would be gone! i pictured going in and the technician saying "looks like it has disappeared "

we went in at 15 weeks and 5 days.....

the lady put the jelly stuff on my belly and right away says " looks like the blood clot has cleared up..... ok, and i don't see that band anymore so that's good (and it was so distinct on the ultrasound before i questioned what it was) and do you want to know what you are having?"
she said all that in one breath!!!!! i was just thanking God! and "YES, we want to know what we are having!" i was so jittery inside knowing that everything looked awesome i was hanging on to having a girl, haha! i was thinking "its so another boy if she knows what we are having, it's so early and she saw "something" right away!

"ok,well, if you look right here, it looks like you are having a GIRL"
omg... i couldn't even talk! i was thanking God again and i just looked at shawn and had tears running down my face! he couldn't even say anything either! then i asked "are you sure?" haha
she said she wouldn't of said anything if she wasn't sure!

talking about God coming through, he gave us a beautiful, healthy baby girl!

6 week vs. 12 weeks

they change so much

16 week ultrasound

next post: all about our gender reveal party!

this was SO much fun!!! i had to keep the secret for a week that

 we were having a girl!

true love waits

true love waits.... some teenagers probably haven't heard that quote before! it was one of my faves when i was growing up! 

shawn and i celebrate 6 years of marriage this weekend! this post was inspired by one of my favorite traits of his. the one thing that i have always loved about him is that he is such a gentleman. he has been since the time we were dating. 

some people could probably careless but we "saved ourselves for marriage" we dated 7 1/2 years before getting married and that's a long time to wait! haha! i am so glad we did! not once before marriage did shawn ask or try to have sex with me! some people may think that is so weird but to me nothing says i love you more than "i have saved myself for you and only you, for our wedding night"  i will definitely be sharing this with our kids and promoting abstinence! most parents will probably think i'm crazy when the kids get older but "hey honey, if your going to have sex at age 13, let me put you on some birth control" is not happening in my house! just because abstinence is becoming less and less common in high school and college, doesn't mean it's not worth teaching your kids about it. it's definitely not easy but so worth it. in reality, who wouldn't love for their child to wait until marriage?  anyway, i could do a whole other post on abstinence but ill save that for another rainy day! (wink)

that above showed me how much of a gentleman Shawn is! it created so much security and trust in our marriage. he is so sweet and i'm so blessed he chose me to be his wife! 

happy 6 year anniversary shawn! 
love you
xoxox