We’ve had a random mash-up of big things happening lately, so I thought I’d share a few to keep from having some crazy long posts later on, haha!
I shared a few weeks ago that our lives are about to get more fun with the addition of sweet Henry! We’re about halfway with this pregnancy, and it seems like it’s been flying by! (Compared to my pregnancy with Liv- that felt like it drug by the whole time!)
One of the biggest surprises of this pregnancy was finding out that not only are we expecting our second, we are also expecting our first niece! In timing that only the Lord could have orchestrated, as we were telling our families that we were expecting, Steven’s brother and his wife shared that they are expecting their first! We first thought we were a few days apart with our due dates, but our first sonograms dated us to the exact same day! Isn’t that wild??? We were already excited for all these cousins to grow up together (because Steven and his brother will practice together once they are both finished with training), but now it will be like little twin cousins!
Two weeks ago, we got to go to Dallas for their gender reveal party. We had already announced that Henry is a boy, so we were waiting to see what baby cousin is going to be! Avery and Shelby had been keeping the secret for weeks, so they were definitely ready to spill the beans, and we were all ready to know! We met them at a park nearby for them to take some announcement pictures with Steven’s mom before the party, and she snapped a few of us, too. (and #momlife- carrying the stupid straw cup with me, haha! I remembered to set it out of sight for some pics!)
I grabbed a few of Livy being goofy walking on the trail. I love this little free spirit!!
And is there anything more sweet than a daddy with his girl?? I feel like I swoon at moments like this all the time!
We teased them the whole time trying to get them to slip and tell us, but they held firm and kept it in! But it’s been so fun to have someone to go through this pregnancy step by step with!
After pictures, we headed to the party! They had it catered at a local Mexican food restaurant, and no joke, we had some of the best fajitas ever. And Livy was close to face planting into a plate of guacamole because she loves it so much, haha! We all had to put in guesses, so Steven, my mother-in-law, and I all guessed boy (even though I had a feeling of girl all along… Steven convinced me to switch at the last minute and I shouldn’t have!), and my father-in-law guessed girl. He was coming off a big win of two handguns at a fundraiser the day before so he was feeling lucky and he was right! They had these hard boxes of chocolate filled with colored whipped cream, and had both grandmas cut into one to reveal… pink whipped cream! We are so excited for our sweet niece!!
We left Dallas the next morning and headed to Abilene to look at the progress on Avery and Shelby’s land and to peek at a property that we are potentially interested in. We are a little time out from buying anything, but we keep an eye on what is available just in case something perfect pops up! We do really like what we looked at, but it’s priced a little high, so we are going to let it sit for a little while and see if it sells at that price or comes down. The good news is that in just the week since we decided to look at it, a few others have popped up that look good as well, so I think we’ll have some good choices when the time comes for us to get serious about buying!
In the midst of all our travels, Steven decided that he was ready to buy a new truck (which as not as out of the blue as that sounded!). We’ve had to replace his transmission twice since we’ve lived in Temple (once right after Olivia was born, and again this past spring, about a year and a few months later). Since this, we’ve both been a little distrustful of this truck, and have been planning to replace it within the next year, but Steven had been waiting for the release of the 2020 line. His old truck (nicknamed “Pablo”) was a 2005 four door F150, so his plan all along had been to hold out long enough to get his dream truck- a diesel four door F350 (especially since he holds on to trucks for as long as possible! I think when we first said he was upgrading, it surprised some people who don’t know us as well, but it feels much needed after getting fifteen years out of his last truck, haha!). He did some research and found that there would be very few differences between the 2019 and 2020 models of the F350, and since you can get much better deals on the year end models, we decided to go ahead and go for it!
His family has been friends for more years than we can count with the owner of the Ford house in the small town where his granny lives (like Granny babysat Danny when he was a kid), and they’ve gotten I think every vehicle from him since the dawn of time. Danny is a super straight shooter- he gave us the best deal with no haggling or hassle, even with advice on which rebates to take and when to buy. The funny thing is that Steven’s dad loves white trucks (which is primarily what they keep on the lot there), and Steven loves black. Steven was willing to take something other than black depending on the options, or to wait and have what he wanted brought in if Danny could find it relatively quickly (but his dad joked with him that he would probably end up with a white truck). Steven called Danny Tuesday morning and he literally had the exact truck Steven wanted sitting on the lot. Like every single option he wanted with diesel in black, sitting there waiting for Steven. I told him that sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, and sometimes he puts your dream truck right on the lot waiting for you, haha!
So, we packed up Thursday night, headed to my parents’ for the night (which is somewhat halfway to his parents’), and then headed to pick up his new truck last Friday!
Just a girl and her daddy chillin’ on the tailgate!
I’ve been so excited for him because he so deserves this and I know he’s been so excited! (isn’t that just marriage though?? Whatever makes your spouse super happy makes you happy too, just because it’s so fun to see them so happy??) And we’ve got so much more room to pack everything when we travel that I’m so excited for trips to be less stressful, haha! All we have left is to add on his front end and back end replacements (which are made by a 3rd party and will be installed here by a mechanic), and order a mat for the bed to keep it from getting scratched. Everything else is perfect, and we have loved it (nicknamed “Pablito” as the next generation of Pablo, haha!) so much so far! When all of this was coming together, Steven told me he was excited about this new truck, but that it was also a little bittersweet because he has loved Pablo so much (which, we didn’t get rid of him, so he didn’t have to say goodbye! We’ve got him on the curb in front of our house for now, and then we’ll move him to the country once we get some land and he’ll be the ranch truck). I told him not to listen to the song “That Old Truck” by Thomas Rhett because when I heard it the first time (and really every time) it made me cry thinking about replacing Pablo. The song talks about his old truck being the place he fell in love, grew up, had laughs, said prayers, etc. and that old truck made him the man he is. Well, that’s how I/ we feel about Pablo, y’all! We fell in love driving all over kingdom come in that old truck, just laughing and talking, and it is bittersweet to watch him retire. And also, the first time I heard it, I was one day away from finding out I’m pregnant, so that explained my overly emotional reaction to it. And I’ve still got an overly emotional reaction that I’ll blame on pregnancy hormones, but Steven’s made us listen to it several times since then and I think it’s a good description/ tribute. We love you, Pablo, and we hope you enjoy retirement!
While we were in Midland for the weekend, my mother-in-law and I took Livy out for some pre-Christmas pictures and I think they turned out so good!
She is definitely not afraid to show off her little personality, and we’ve caught so many great little moments with her lately. Every time I think I couldn’t love that little sass any more, she does something that just melts me!
And this past Monday (after all the hubbub of the weekend!), we went in for our halfway anatomy scan for Henry! I’ll probably give more details on my next bump update, but it was sweet to see his little self and get an idea of what he’s doing in there! Steven tried to take some halfway bump pics for me with some of the sonogram prints, and I ended up with a sweet little helper. 🙂 Of course I didn’t mind– she’s my favorite helper!
And that pretty much catches us up! Steven’s been on call at the VA this week, and then goes on call at the main hospital next week, so we might see him for Thanksgiving 😉 just kidding! He’s always busy on service, but it’s unpredictable just how busy- the last time was crazy busy, but the time before wasn’t too bad, so we’ll just see how it goes a day at a time! I’ll be back next week for What’s Up Wednesday, and probably the 5 month bump update as well! Have a great weekend, y’all!
Linked with Andrea for Friday Favorites!
Red Bank Life 
SO many great things in one post!! Congrats on your niece too, so crazy cool that they share a due date, will be fun to see when each is born 🙂 Hooray on the new truck, funny how somethings just fall in to place. I totally agree with you on marriage and seeing your spouse happy makes you happy! Livy is adorable as always!
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