drumroll please...

tyler and i went in for our 20 week ultrasound today to find out the health and gender of our baby. tyler had decided before hand that he really wanted a boy, and i was undecided. as soon as the sonogram popped up tyler spied the gender. i happened to miss it, but heard the nurse using a gender specific pronoun during the ultrasound. once the nurse got a clear shot there was NO mistaking that we are having a healthy little...

sorry for the extremely poor quality. we couldn't get our scanner to work, so i took a picture of a picture. not so good, but i think you get the point.

boy!

i did have my suspicions. i felt this kid move at 14 weeks, and this wasn't just that subtle butterfly feeling. it was a hard kick. and ever since then the hard kicks haven't stopped. i just assumed that hard kick=boy. well come to find out that because your uterus has a front and a back, the placenta can attach to either one. my doctor said that the placenta is most likely in the back meaning there is not nearly as much cushion to block the movement of the baby. makes sense. and hey, it's been tons of fun to feel the baby so well already.

we are very excited to have a boy and a girl. i honestly thought either one would be fun, but will admit that a boy makes me a little nervous. i'm so used to everything girl. i'm not sure i know how to raise a boy.

5 months

another test week come and gone

wow. i'm shocked that it is almost may. i swear it was just yesterday that we were starting medical school, and i was left thinking that we had four whole years to go. but what was i thinking? now i'm sitting here saying that we only have three years left. again, wow. i can't believe how quickly this time has flown by.

tyler recently finished his second to last week of tests. congrats to him i say. that means he has put in so many hours of studying that i don't even dare count. but we are so proud of his hard work. he has accomplished so much in just one year. what a smartie.

as for katelyn and i, well, i can't say we were working so hard. no, we played hard. you see, during these test weeks, you don't see your husband so much. we try to find fun things to do together and with friends to keep us occupied. this is what we did.

we made sugar cookies

ryan and katelyn. they were each give a little ball of cookie dough to lay out and cut shapes out of. they both kept laughing and smiling the whole time.

and of course they both did their fair share of taste testing too.

this is ryan's "cheese" face. i thought it was pretty funny because he almost looks mad, but he's not. he probably had the most fun out of the two kids. oh, and notice the dough in his mouth. more taste testing.

katelyn felt it was her job to make sure we had plenty of flour on the counter. she took it very seriously.

all done.

we went to the park

this is katelyn's best little friend, eliza, or as katelyn likes to call her, ziza. they follow each other all over and love to hold hands together. it really is quite cute.

and to top off the test week, we went to a barbeque

it was turned out to be the perfect day for a bbq. the weather got up in the 80's. we got to pull out the shorts and sandels. katelyn stayed entertained that evening with sidewalk chalk and croquet balls.

just some of the ladies that were present. the roberts were so kind to host this. they invited all of the first years and some of the second years too. it was a great crowd with some good food.

now this week we are patiently waiting for our ultrasound appointment. we find out the gender of the baby tomorrow.

fun in the sun

we had the best week last week! the sun was shining and it was warm almost every single day. it totally reminded me of how much i love the warm weather. i realized how much i missed just sitting outside soaking in the rays while watching katelyn happily play with outside toys. come on summer...we're ready. can't you tell?

one morning last week was spent hanging out at the lake with the ladies and the kids. i'm not sure who had more fun. the grown-ups or the kids. it's debatable. the only reason we got these three kiddos together is because jaycee (on the left) had a bag of marshmellows that they wanted. and isn't that little guy so cute? i babysit him a couple of days a week, and he's tons of fun to have around.
again, same story, only this time you can see katelyn trying to steal some of the goodies. i didn't take a ton of pictures of our outside adventures. i guess we were enjoying the sun way too much.

i also decided to do this post because i realized i have never really blogged about the things katelyn and i spend doing during the week. sure, we keep quite busy with our errands, blah, blah. but we spend tons of time with my girlfriends and their cute kids. not sure what i would do without them!

Easter

i realize it has been so long since i've actually updated, but katelyn and i have been stuck indoors for the past two weeks with colds. so naturally, blogging got pushed to the side. thankfully we are now feeling much better.

we had a wonderful easter weekend. katelyn got to go to a friend's birthday party where she hunted for easter eggs. she was a little confused at first. she couldn't figure out why we were telling her to put the plastic eggs into her basket. that is until she realized there was candy inside.

she also got to experience decorating eggs for the first time. the back of the dying box said that the dye was non-toxic, so we let katelyn have at it. by the end she had one dark green hand and no amount of soap and water was going to take it off. so now she keeps walking around the house telling me, "it's green!" over and over again.

on sunday katelyn got to wear her new, cute easter dress and she got to see what was in her easter basket. that was a pretty quick affair. we basically showed the candy then hid it away after she had a couple of pieces. that girl can down the sweets. we had a lovely stake conference that morning where we were reminded of what easter is really about. then that evening we had a nice fhe as a family where we talked about the real reason for this easter holiday. although i don't think it sunk in at all for katelyn, i was grateful that we took the time to do this to remind ourselves about the Savior and of His resurrection.

we hope you had a wonderful easter!

the hedin family

here's a picture of our family. notice anything?

that's right...we're expeciting. we are so excited to welcome number two into our family mid-september. i will be 15 weeks on friday and couldn't be feeling better!

reunion

things are back to normal in our house again. katelyn has been reunited with her elephant, and she couldn't be happier.

as soon as he got to our place, we opened up the box and let her do the unwrapping. it was so fun to watch her as she slowly opened it up. first she had a confused look on her face, but it quickly changed to a surprised look then a very excited one. i don't think i need to explain much more
because the pictures explain it all.

here's what i got. i apoligize for the quality of the pictures. the unwrapping went quickly, so i was snapping pictures just as fast.

farewell dear friend

this past weekend we lost katelyn's beloved elephant. anyone who has ever been around katelyn knows that she rarely goes anywhere without her elephant. he is truly her best friend. here's how it happened (by the way this is loooong) :

katelyn and i had gone shopping with some friends at a couple of different stores. it was a rainy afternoon, so i decided not to argue with katelyn when she wanted to bring elephant inside with her. i just wanted to get inside quickly.

we went to our first store without any hitches. it was the second store where we lost elephant. i was the one holding and keeping track of elephant while katelyn ran around the store with friends playing with toys. i was also the one who set elephant down and forgot about him. it wasn't until it was time to go that i realized i no longer had elephant in my arms. i quickly ran back to the place i had him last, fully expecting to find him, but he wasn't there. at first i didn't think anything of it. i thought i must have moved him or dropped him somewhere else. so i started searching the whole store. it didn't take long to search because it was a very small store, but elephant was no where to be found. i really was baffled. i searched and searched that store for another 30 minutes. i asked the employees if they had seen anything, but they hadn't. by the end of my search i was completely confused and frustrated. katelyn didn't realize at the time what was wrong, but i knew she would when bedtime rolled around.

i left the store crying, mainly out of frustration and guilt for losing katelyn's favorite toy. i got in my car and prayed that we could find this elephant.

katelyn did great that night playing and having fun...until it was time to go to bed. we put her in bed and she immedietely started looking around for elephant. she started patting her bed and asking, "where is it?" over and over again. we tried to explain that elephant was gone, but she didn't understand. she wanted to get out of her crib to search, but of course he wasn't anywhere around the house. after trying to help her understand again, we finally put her back in her crib and closed the door. she cried for 10-15 minutes, then finally fell asleep. after she went to sleep i decided to check the internet to see if i could find the same elephant. i had no idea there were so many stuffed animal elephants out there, and not one was the same.

that night i couldn't stop feeling guilty about her elephant. i felt so bad that i had made katelyn cry when she hadn't done anything wrong. sure, i make her cry all of the time when i say no or make her share her favorite toy, but this was different. i sat on the couch for a long time thinking about that elephant. i couldn't stop thinking about the stories i grew up hearing from gene r. cook about prayer and finding things you have lost. i finally decided to pull out my book, receiving answers to prayer, by gene r. cook. i read of the personal examples he shared and the ways he talked about preparing yourself for prayer and receiving answers to prayer. i applied these principals he talked of to the best of my ability. i can honestly say i felt much better after i took that time to ponder. i really felt like everything was going to be okay. tyler and i then decided to go back to the store the next day to take one more look for the elephant.

before searching the store a second time, tyler and i prayed once more to find the elephant. i just remember telling the Lord that we knew that He knew where the elephant was. but if it wasn't meant to be found, then we would accept that answer. we went into the store and searched once more, but to no avail. i admit i went home a little disappointed. i truly thought we were going to find him.

that evening, as i was yet again thinking about elephant, i decided to check the internet one more time. i typed in the exact same thing i had typed the day before. one of the searches came up from ebay. i clicked on it, and amazingly, it was the exact same elephant. i was elated. i made tyler come and take a look and we hurried and bought the elephant.

i know that this was a direct answer to my prayers. i'm grateful that we have this wonderful principle where we can talk to a loving Father in Heaven who cares about the same things we do. i know it was just a dumb, dirty elephant, but he meant so much to our little katelyn, and after losing him, to me. i'm grateful also that we didn't find him right away so that my faith could be strenghthed and i could take the time to really prepare my mind and heart for prayer.
i'm pretty sure that elephant will be a constant reminder of this principle, and i'm grateful for that too.

we haven't yet received elephant in the mail, but we will surely video record katelyn's reaction with her beloved elephant.